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HE PITIFUL PLIGHT 

OF THE 

, ^SYRIAN CHRISTIANS 

IN 

PERSIA AND KURDISTAN 


DESCRIBED 
from the reports 
of eye-witnesses 

BY 

William Walker Rockwell, Ph.D. 

Member of the American Committee 
for Armenian and Syrian Relief 


WITH MAP AND ILLUSTRATIONS 


NEW YORK 

AMERICAN COMMITTEE FOR ARMENIAN AND SYRIAN RELIEF 

1916 


GENERAL CONVENTION EDITION 
WITH THE RESOLUTION ADOPTED 





















































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.2 fiasco labors ^oi^sox '.oso orisoiCsaob^ 

HIS BEATITUDE MAR SHIMUN 
PATRIARCH OF THE EAST 



THE PITIFUL PLIGHT 

OF THE 

ASSYRIAN CHRISTIANS 

IN 

PERSIA AND KURDISTAN 


DESCRI BED 
from the reports 
of eye-witnesses 

BY 

William Walker Rockwell, Ph.D. 

M 

Member of the American Committee 
for Armenian and Syrian Relief 


WITH MAP AND ILLUSTRATIONS 


NEW YORK 

AMERICAN COMMITTEE FOR ARMENIAN AND SYRIAN RELIEF 

1916 


CONTENTS 


Introduction 



CHAPTER 

I. Who and Where are the Assyrian Christians? ... 7 

II. Effects of the War on the Assyrian Christians in 

the Tigris Valley 14 

III. How the Plateau of Urumia was Harrowed 15 

IV. Mar Shimun’s Highlanders and Their Fight for 

Life, as Depicted in the Thrilling Narrative 
of Mr. Shlemon, of Berwar 29 


V. The Plight of the Mountaineers During Their 

Winter in and Near the Plain of Salmas. ... 43 

VI. Letters from the Assyrian Patriarch and from His 


Sister 50 

VII. How Many Refugees Must be Cared For? What 

is Their Death Rate? 53 

VIII. How the Money is Spent 58 

IX. The Need of the Hour 61 

List of Books on the Assyrian or Nestorian Christians. . . 62 

An Appeal on Behalf of the Assyrian Christians 67 

Letters from the Archbishop of Canterbury 69 

Resolution of the General Convention 70 

A Prayer for Those in Distress 71 

Practical Hints ! 72 

; 4 


■Htt Trnnsffc** 

NOV 5 1921 


INTRODUCTION 

The materials for the present pamphlet were drawn chiefly 
Irom the publications and from the unpublished correspondence 
of the American Committee for Armenian and Syrian Relief, 
of the Foreign Board of the Presbyterian Church in the United 
States of America, and of the Archbishop of Canterbury’s 
Assyrian Mission. It presents also a letter from Mar Shimun, 
the Assyrian Patriarch, epistles from the Archbishop of Can- 
terbury, and a resolution of the General Convention of the 
Episcopal Church. 

Its preparation was planned at a conference called by the 
writer at Columbia University on the 16th of August, at which 
the following gentlemen appeared: Reverend W. A. Shedd, 
D.D., of the American Mission at Urumia, who sailed 
for his post the next day; Reverend R. M. Labaree, recently 
Chairman of the Relief Committee at Urumia and Salmas; Mr. 
Paul Shimmon, of Urumia, an eye-witness of the devastation 
of the preceding year, and the personal representative of the 
Assyrian Patriarch; and Dr. Abraham Yohannan, of Colum- 
bia University. To these gentlemen and to Mr. George T. 
Scott, of the Presbyterian Board, the compiler is indebted for 
suggestions and for criticisms. 

To facilitate the study of the subject there have been in- 
cluded in the pamphlet a new map and a list of about fifty 
books and articles, chiefly in the English language. With the 
kind permission of Rev. F. N. Heazell, of Letchworth, Eng- 
land, the map was compiled from those used by the Archbish- 
op’s Mission. 

The second edition of this pamphlet, already in press, 
gives statistics of population before the war, arranged by 
localities. This involves the omission of the material here 
presented on pp. 67-71, as for several reasons the pamphlet 
must not exceed seventy-two pages in length. 

May this little publication be not merely a record of 
bravery in bearing the cross, but also a call to aid in the 
rescue of the decimated survivors of an ancient communion, 
which preserves very closely in its liturgies the Aramaic 
spoken by our Lord. Once pioneers in the penetration of 
Asia by Christianity, for centuries in their mountain fastnesses 
they have been loyal defenders of their faith. 

WILLIAM WALKER ROCKWELL. 

Broadway at 120th Street 
New York City, October 24, 1916. 


















































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CHAPTER I. 

WHO AND WHERE ARE THE ASSYRIAN CHRISTIANS? 


WHO ARE THEY? 

D URING the past eighteen months a great deal has ap- 
peared in the papers about the sufferings of the 
Armenians and of the Syrians. Information about 
them from various excellent channels has poured into 
the offices of the American Committee for Armenian and Syrian 
Relief. The American public has learned that the Armenians 
are unfortunate subjects of the Sultan of Turkey; but nearly 
everyone is confused by the term “Syrian.” People ordinarily 
think of the Syrians as living in modern Syria, that is, the 
regions near the Mediterranean that contain the cities of 
Antioch, Aleppo and Damascus. Actually men proud to call 
themselves Syrians are found not only in modern Syria, but 
also in localities as remote from the Mediterranean coast as 
are Mesopotamia, Kurdistan and Northwestern Persia. In fact, 
those Syrians to whom the American Committee has thus far 
sent nearly all of the relief are not the inhabitants of the 
Lebanons, needy as these may be, but the Nestorians and re- 
lated natives of Kurdistan and Northwestern Persia, who for 
the lack of a better name are now designated Assyrian 
Christians. 

The Assyrian Christians inhabit a portion of the territory 
known in Bible times as Assyria; therefore they are called 
Assyrian Christians. They also call themselves Syrians; for 
their Bible and other sacred books are in ancient Syriac and 
most of them speak modern Syriac. 

WHY HAVE THEY BEEN CALLED NESTORIANS? 

They have long been designated also as Nestorians, be- 
cause they refused to acquiesce in the condemnation of 
Nestorius, Patriarch of Constantinople, in the year 431 a.d. 
The differences between the Nestorians and the Orthodox 
party dominant at Constantinople were cleverly exploited by 
the fire-worshipping Sassanid kings of Persia, who tolerated 
the Nestorians just because they were not in communion with 
the hereditary enemy of Persia, Constantinople. In consequence 
of Greek persecution and Sassanid toleration, in the fifth cen- 
tury the intellectual centre of the Nestorians shifted from the 

7 


Greek frontier city of Edessa (Oorfa) to Nisibin, which was 
then in Persian territory. 

In the Life of his father, the late Archbishop of Canter- 
bury, Arthur Christopher Benson writes: “As to their doc- 
trinal position, though loosely called ‘Nestorians’ it is a moot 
point how far they are ‘Nestorians’ in the European sense 
of the word. My father more than once expressed his opinion 
that the heresy of Nestorius was to a great extent a question of 
language, and it is very uncertain whether the Assyrian Chris- 
tians, or even Nestorius himself, ever professed what is now 
meant by ‘Nestorianism’ ” (ii., 177). These statements, pub- 
lished in 1899, have been brilliantly confirmed by later discov- 
eries of supposedly lost works of Nestorius, discussed in recent 
publications by Loofs, Bedjan, Nau, Bethune-Baker and Wig- 
ram. The ancient Nestorian question is now seen in a new light. 

ENGLISH AND AMERICAN INTEREST IN THE ASSYRIAN CHRISTIANS 

The missionary enthusiasm of the early nineteenth century 
rallied to the assistance of the Oriental Christians who were 
subjects of Mohammedan powers. The American Board of 
Commissioners for Foreign Missions early founded stations 
at Mosul, Mardin, Urumia (1835) and elsewhere. In spite of 
their initial determination to assist in the regeneration of the 
Oriental Churches from within, and to discourage the forma- 
tion of specifically Protestant Churches, ecclesiastical dif- 
ferences between the American missionaries and the native 
hierarchies at length rendered that step inevitable. The sur- 
render of the field to the American Presbyterians in 1870 
did not alter this policy of friendly cooperation wherever it 
was welcome; and at the present time the Presbyterian mis- 
sionaries have been, and still are, cooperating with the Arch- 
bishop of Canterbury, the Assyrian Patriarch, the Russian 
consuls, the Roman Catholic missionaries, and many other 
agencies, in the broadest kind of relief work; and several of 
them have died of diseases at their posts contracted in the en- 
deavor to alleviate the misery of the refugees 

The Archbishops of Canterbury have long shown interest 
in the welfare of the Assyrian Christians. In 1842 Archbishop 
Howley, together with the Bishop of London, sent the Rev. 
George Percy Badger to assist the Assyrian patriarch in the 
education and improvement of his people. Dr. Badger re- 
mained a year at the cost of the S. P. G. and of the S. P. C. K., 


8 


but his support was withdrawn, so he returned. The chief 
fiuits of his labors were the pioneer volumes entitled The 
l\estorians and their Rituals (1852), and a friendly feeling 
on the part of the Assyrian Church toward the Church of 
England, due particularly to the fact that Dr. Badger sheltered 
Mar Shimun in his house at Mosul during a great Kurdish 
massacre. In 18/6, the Rev. E. L. Cutts was commissioned 
by the English archbishops to visit Kurdistan and to report 
on what could be done to help the Assyrian Christians. At 
length, in 1886, the Archbishop’s Assyrian Mission was put 



The Matran Mar Khnanishu, Metropolitan Bishop of the 
Assyrian Christians (on the left) and the 
Rev. Y. M. Neesan 

upon a permanent and satisfactory basis. The first two vol- 
unteers were the Rev. W. H. Browne, M.A., who died in 
Assyria in 1910, and Canon Maclean, M.A., now Bishop of 
Moray, Ross and Caithness. The Rev. Y. M. Neesan, in Ameri- 
can orders, soon joined them. As it is evidenced in his biog- 
raphy, Archbishop Benson took the deepest interest in this at- 
tempt to bring aid, in the most catholic spirit of helpfulness, 

9 



to this ancient Oriental communion. The Mission was main- 
tained for a generation with headquarters first at Urumia, then 
in Van (about 1903-1910), and lately in Amadia. The com- 
mencement of hostilities between Turkey and the Entente Allies 
necessitated the abandonment of the Mission; but the circles 
in England who stood behind the Mission are now particularly 
active in the work of relief, as shown below by the letters from 
the present Archbishop of Canterbury. 

HIGHLAND HOME OF PATRIARCH 

During the early middle ages the Assyrian Christians were 
subject to the Patriarch of Seleucia-Ctesiphon, whose resi- 
dence was a few miles down the Tigris from Bagdad; but the 
coming of the Turks as conquerors forced the Patriarchs finally 
to take refuge in Qudshanis (or Kochannes), a village in the 
highlands of Kurdistan. The present Assyrian Patriarch bears 
the official title Mar Shimun (My Lord Simon.) It is said that 
he is the one hundred-thirty-eighth Catholicos of the East, and 
the fourteenth who has resided in Qudshanis. 

INHABIT A TRIANGLE 

At the outbreak of the European War most of the Assyrian 
Christians lived in a territory triangular in shape and roughly 
one hundred and fifty miles on each of its three sides. One 
corner was at Mosul on the Tigris, just across from the ruins 
of Nineveh. From Mosul the Assyrian settlements stretched 
up the Tigris valley and also toward Lake Van, the largest 
body of water in Eastern Turkey. Assuming the Lake of 
Van as the northwestern corner of the great triangle, we run 
a line east-south-east to the lake of Urumia, the largest body 
of water in northwestern Persia. Then we complete the 
triangle by running a line from the lake of Urumia to Mosul, 
our starting point. (See map, p. 36.) 

Within this triangle, geographic conditions vary widely. 
There are the torrid Mesopotamian plain at Mosul, the 4,600- 
foot plateau beside the Lake of Urumia, and the wild high- 
lands of Kurdistan, 6,000 to 14,000 feet above sea level. 

THE THREE MAIN GROUPS 

The Assyrian Christians have been profoundly influenced 
by the kind of country they inhabit. We may distinguish three 
main groups. First, the inhabitants of the Tigris valley, 

10 




from the plain of Mosul up the river into the hilly country, 
where the Tigris is known as the Bohtan-su. The total Chris- 
tian population of this district is estimated at 80,000, exclusive 
of the Jacobites in the vilayet of Diarbekir. These figures in- 
clude those “Chaldean” Christians who, as a result of per- 
sistent missionary work by the Dominicans and others, have 
become Roman Catholic Uniats. They also cover the Protes- 
tants in Jezireh-ibn-Omar, about eighty-five miles in an air 
line northwest of Mosul, with its neighboring settlements, 
Monsoria (Mansuria), and Shakh. 

The second group of Assyrian Christians lives in about 
seventy villages on the plateaus of Urumia and Salmas in 
Persia, and in the mountains just east of the Turkish boundary. 
In Urumia and Salmas, as will be shown later on, the relief 
work has centered. The Christian mountaineers in Persia live 
in the border districts of Mergawar and Tergawar. The total 
Assyrian Christian population in Persia was estimated before 
the war at 35,000. This does not include the Armenians, who 
are scattered throughout some of the villages of the Urumia 
plain and are especially strong in Salmas. The Presbyterians 
have an influential mission founded over eighty years ago in 
Urumia, and a smaller work at Salmas. The Roman Catholic 
Mission at Urumia is in the hands of the Lazarists, a congrega- 
tion founded by St. Vincent de Paul; and the Apostolic Dele- 
gate in Persia, Mgr. Sontag, played for some time a prom- 
inent part in affairs.. Since the Russian penetration of 
this part of Persia (Adarbaijan) many Assyrian Chris- 
tians have followed the example of the bishop of Su- 
perghan, who, in 1897-98 accepted Russian orthodoxy and 
control. During this proceeding the Anglican mission re- 
mained neutral, and later concentrated its actvities on the 
Turkish side of the border. All these missions and Chris- 
tian agencies have been co-operating during the present 
period of distress. 

The third and main group of Assyrian Christians lies mid- 
way between the preceding groups. It consists of the High- 
landers, who live on the Turkish side of the border in Tkhuma, 
Tyari and other valleys near the headwaters of the river Zab. 
Just before the war their numbers were estimated at between 
75,000 and 100,000. Most of them are members of the Ashiret 
or semi-independent tribes, who merely pay tribute to the 
Sultan. Their actual religious and civil head is the Assyrian 

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patriarch, Mar Shimun, whose residence is in the mountain 
village of Qudshanis. Outside the Ashiret groups, there 
are a number of Assyrian Christians who recognize Mar 
Shimun as their religious head, but politically they are mere 
rayats (subjects). 

In the second edition of this pamphlet we present the most 
recent statistics, specially compiled for the purpose. 

When Russia declared war on Turkey on the 3d of Novem- 
ber, 1914, the Assyrian Christians found they were living in a 
war zone. The three groups were variously affected. 

CHAPTER II. 

EFFECTS OF THE WAR ON THE ASSYRIAN CHRISTIANS 
IN THE TIGRIS VALLEY 

The first group, inhabiting the Tigris valley, was out of 
the line of military operations. We have heard from two 
sources that the Christians in the Mosul region were spared 
by the Turks, owing chiefly to the influence of their Roman 
Catholic patriarch and of the German consul at Mosul, Mr. 
Holstein. That some villages nevertheless suffered severely is 
shown below in the discussions of the death rate (pp. 54-56). 
The Protestant communities, however, that were situated up 
the river in another vilayet, were massacred, as appears from 
the following extract from a letter of a Presbyterian mission- 
ary, the Rev. E. W. McDowell, of Salmas, Persia, dated March 
6, 1916: 

“There was a general massacre in the Bohtan region, 
and our helpers, preachers, teachers and Biblewomen, 
with their families, fell as victims also of this massacre. 
The man who brought the word is known to me per- 
sonally. This young man tells the story how by order 
of the government the Kurds and Turkish soldiers put 
the Christians of all those villages, including Jezireh, to 
the sword. . . . 

“The three villages of Hassan, Shakh and Monsoria 
were Protestant and it is to be feared that they were 
wiped out, as were all the other Christian villages of the 
plain. Many of the women of Monsoria threw them- 
selves into the river to avoid falling into the hands of the 
Kurds. Mar Yohannan and Mar Akha were still safe 


14 


at the time — fled. The terrible feature about it was that 
after the first slaughter there were Kurds who tried to 
save some of the Christians alive, but the government 
would not permit it. . . . 

"This terrible calamity grieves me more than I can 
tell you. And more than those who died, the fate of 
those carried off into captivity weighs upon me.” 

CHAPTER III. 

HOW THE PLATEAU OF URUMIA WAS HARROWED 

The sufferings of the second or Urumia group began three 
weeks prior to the declaration of war, when from the 9th to 
the 12th of October, 1914, the Turks and their half-savage 
allies the Kurds attacked Urumia. A number of villages were 
destroyed and their surviving inhabitants fled to the city. The 
Russians protected the town and afterwards gave the Christians 
in the outlying villages weapons to defend themselves in case 
of attack until they could summon assistance from the city. 

TURKS OCCUPY URUMIA 

After the formal declaration of war the Turks invaded 
Transcaucasia, thus threatening the communications of the 
Russians in Persia with their base in the Caucasus. Therefore 
the Russians evacuated Urumia suddenly on the 2d of Janu- 
ary, 1915, Salmas on the 4th, and Tabriz on the 5th. Promptly 
on the 4th, Turkish troops occupied the city of Urumia, but 
from the 2d to the 10th the Kurds and the Persian rabble 
vented their hatred on the outlying Christian villages. Owing 
to their overwhelming numbers very little resistance could be 
offered. Plunder, burning, massacre and rape were the order 
of the day. The terrors of such an attack may be readily 
pictured if we imagine a raid on defenseless Texas villages by 
a superior force of Villa’s bandits, acting in harmony with the 
de facto government and goaded on by the Proclamation of a 
Holy War. Fanaticism was not, however, the dominant motive. 

On the 20th of May, 1915, the day that the Turks left 
Urumia for good, Mrs. J. P. Cochran, widow of the famous 
Presbyterian medical missionary, wrote the following vivid 
summary of the horrors and the heroism of the siege: 

15 


KURDISH DEPREDATIONS 

“The Russians’ departure was the herald for the 
Kurds to pounce upon the prey they had so long been 
held at bay from, and even before they arrived the 
Moslem neighbors in all the surrounding villages flew 
upon the spoil, killing Syrians, running off with their 
cattle and household goods and even stripping thpse who 
were trying to run away from them of their money, 
bundles and any clothes they cared for. They also car- 
ried off women and tried to force Christians to become 
Moslems, keeping them safely if they would deny their 
faith, or repeat the sentence which constituted the ac- 
ceptance of Islam. In some cases they were successful in 
this, though, of course, many would not and some of 
them were killed for it. 

“Then came the rush of the Kurds. They came in 
hundreds from every Kurdish quarter, sore against the 
Christians for having joined forces with the Russians 
who had armed them and drafted them for military ser- 
vice whether they would or not. 

“They being armed put up a fight and killed a good 
many Kurds in the battles at some of the villages, though 
there were a couple of thousand Syrians killed, too, in 
the villages before they escaped to the slender protection 
offered by six unarmed American men in our mission 
compound. 

SEEK SHELTER IN AMERICAN COMPOUND 

“Our flag was put up on not only our own prop- 
erty here in the city, but on all the adjoining block 
of Christian property in the city, and doors or holes in 
walls made between all that adjoining property to make 
it under our control and only our principal big street 
gate allowed to be opened, all others being barricaded. 
There in the city between ten and fifteen thousand, many 
thousand of them destitute, congregated and sat huddled 
in rooms, a hundred in a room or more, sometimes un- 
able to lie down at night on account of the crowding. 

“We had a good deal of money intrusted to us by 
the people who had to flee, and as most of it was in silver 
twenty cent pieces, there being no paper money in cir- 

16 


culation here, they could carry away but little, and we 
took charge of large sums without interest, to be used 
by us if necessary and repaid when banking was re- 
sumed. With this we began to feed the people. It was 
the system in the city to sell bread until noon and after 
that to distribute one of the thin sheets of bread to each 
one who had nothing to eat and no money to buy any. 
This distribution took a force of about twenty or thirty 
men seven hours to get around with. 

TYPHOID FILLS 700 GRAVES 

“Then we all began to get the typhoid fever. We 
had some Turkish soldiers in the hospital with it and 
the people were ignorant and careless and we had an 
epidemic of it. We have 700 new-made graves in our 
compound here at the college as the result of it. 

“In the city it was even worse. It is raging in our big 
compound, though from the first they had from ten to 
forty deaths a day from cold, privation, illness of one 
kind and another and perhaps shock from fright. 

DR. PACKARD RESCUES 3,000 FROM THE KURDS 

“In another part of the city, where we have a big school 
building for our Moslem boys’ school, 3,000 people 
were rescued and brought in by Dr. Packard’s valiant 
intervention, when he rode up to the Kurdish chief in 
the thick of a fight between Kurds and the villagers in- 
trenched in Russian trenches and fighting for their lives. 
He begged the lives of the inhabitants, and after parley- 
ing awhile succeeded in buying the souls of the people 
in exchange for their guns, and rode back to the city with 
them after the sun had set on a January night, reaching 
the city about nine o’clock, their homes being robbed and 
burned behind them by the Kurds. 

“Turkish rule and Kurdish plundering have reduced 
the inhabitants to the verge of starvation, and as yet the 
end is not in sight. 

“There is no power of description that can overdraw 
the picture that is and has been before our eyes con- 
stantly of misery and distress. Instead, we have to veil 
it, for details are too horrible, too revolting to try to 
convey to people who are not called upon by God to go 

17 


through it. But whatever the end may be for me, I am 
sure I can only be thankful God has given me such an 
unlimited opportunity for service as these past months 
have been.” 

Relief work at Urumia at once took on large proportions, 
as is shown by the following extract from a letter of the Rev. 
Hugo A. Muller, Treasurer of the mission, dated May 26, 1915: 

“With the first inrush of people into our yards for 
safety came the necessity for providing bread. The first 
day it was done in an irregular way, each giving where 
he saw need, but soon bread was being brought in by the 
hammal (porter) loads, and we realized that it was an 
expenditure that we individuals could not bear. Mr. 
Allen took charge of the bread work for a few days until 
the village work required his attention, when Miss Lewis 
assumed the responsibility and organized the work in a 
business-like way, with a large and faithful corps of na- 
tive assistants. This responsibility she carried until she 
came down with the fever, when it was turned over to me 
and I have been in charge of the purchasing ever since. 

FIVE TONS OF BREAD A DAY 

“More than 3,000 bread tickets, each for from one to 
three hundred persons, have been issued and reissued, and 
for perhaps more than three months a committee has been 
in constant session (under Miss Lewis’s leadership until 
her illness, then under Mr. Allen until his illness, and 
since then under Mr. McDowell) revising and calling in 
or reissuing tickets. In spite of all this care the 
amount of bread distributed daily at one time rose to 
more than five tons, but now it is somewhat less than 
that. We have been fortunate in that bread has been 
quite cheap throughout this trouble, but, nevertheless, 
by far the largest and most constant expenditure has 
been for bread.” 


The most notable detailed description of the siege of 
Urumia, thrilling but too long to give here, is in a pamphlet 
issued by the Presbyterian Board of Foreign Missions, en- 

18 


titled The War Journal of a Missionary in Persia, edited by 
Mary Schauffler Platt , since reprinted in full among Mr. 
Toynbee’s documents. 


The following narrative by the Rev. W. A. Shedd, D.D., 
of the American Presbyterian Mission at Urumia, covers the 
events related above by Mrs. Cochran and Mr. Muller. It 
gives a graphic picture and attaches responsibility for the 
massacres where it belongs: 

THE FIRST FLIGHT FROM URUMIA AND SALMAS 
“The retreat of the Russians put all Christians in 
peril. The Salmas Christians, except about eight hun- 
dred, most of the Christians of Tabriz, and eight or ten 
thousand from Urumia, fled with the retreating Russians. 
They left on the shortest notice, without preparation and 
in the heart of winter. Many perished by the way, 
mothers dying in childbirth, old men and women and 
little children falling by the wayside from exhaustion. 
This party of fugitives increased in number by several 
thousands from regions in Turkey between Khoi and 
Van, passed over the Russian border and scattered in the 
villages and towns of Transcaucasia. Many of them 
died of disease due to the privations and exposures of 
flight and life as refugees. 

MASSACRE AND PLUNDER 

“This flight left some 25,000 Christians in Urumia. 
All of these sought shelter from massacre. On the one 
hand the Kurds were pouring into the plain, urged 
on and followed by Turkish officers and troops; on the 
other hand, the Moslem villagers set to work robbing 
and looting, killing men and women and outraging the 
women. Several thousand found refuge with friendly 
Mohammedans. Great credit is due to no small num- 
ber of Moslems, most of them humble villagers and some 
men of higher rank, who protected the imperiled Chris- 
tians. In some cases safety was bought by professing 
Mohammedanism. Many died as martyrs to their faith. 
In several places the Christians defended themselves, but 
the massacring was not confined to these. Villages that 
deliberately gave up their arms and avoided any conflict 
suffered as much as those that fought. 

19 


SAFE UNDER THE AMERICAN FLAG 

“The mass of the people fled to the city and all, in- 
cluding the city people, took refuge in the Mission com- 
pounds. The French Roman Catholic Mission sheltered 
about 3,000, and the compounds of the American Pres- 
byterian Mission about 17,000. The latter were enlarged 
by joining neighboring yards and so enclosing in one 
connected compound with but one gate for entrance and 
exit, some fifteen to twenty yards. The American flag 
was placed over the compounds of the American Mis- 
sion and here people were safe from massacre. 

“The villages in the meanwhile, with three or four 
exceptions, were the prey of plunder and destruction. 
Everything movable that possessed the least value was 
either carried away or destroyed. 

GENERAL INSECURITY OF LIFE AND PROPERTY 

“During the months of Turkish occupation there was 
never a time of real safety to Christians. The most un- 
remitting efforts on the part of the missionaries secured 
comparative safety within the city walls and the people 
were scattered, to some extent, from the mission com- 
pound; and a few villages, including two that were not 
plundered at the first, were kept comparatively safe 
through the efforts of the Persian Governor. Beyond 
these narrow limits the Christians could not go. This 
was shown by constant robberies and murders when 
Christians ventured forth. During this period the Turks 
were responsible not only for failure to protect the Chris- 
tians effectively, but also for direct massacres under 
orders. 

GRISLY EVIDENCES OF WHOLESALE EXTERMINATION 

“One hundred and seventy men thus massacred 
were buried by the American missionaries, their bodies 
lying in heaps where they had been shot down and 
stabbed. They had been tied together and led out to be 
murdered by Turkish agents. These atrocities took place 
on three different occasions; once men were seized by 
Turkish officers in the French Mission and sent out from 
the Turkish headquarters to be killed (among them be- 
ing Mar Dinkha, the Nestorian Bishop). Once there 

20 


were men seized in a village under the protection 
of Turkish soldiers and whose safety had been pledged 
repeatedly by the highest Turkish officials, and once 
there were men from just over the border in Turkey who 
had been forced to bring telegraph wire down to Urumia, 
and were then taken out and killed. In each of these cases 
some escaped and crawled out, wounded and bloody, 
from the heaps of dead and dying, to find refuge with 
the American missionaries. Besides these, the Armenian 
soldiers in the Turkish army previous to the arrival of 
Halil Bey were shot. 

SUMMARY OF ATROCITIES IN URUMIA DISTRICT, TO MAY, 1915 

“In Urumia the total results in loss of this 
period, from the evacuation of the Russians on 
January 2d until their return, on May 24th, were the 
murder of over one thousand people, men, women and 
children, the outraging of hundreds of women and girls 
of every age — from eight or nine years to old age — the 
total robbing of about five-sixths of the Christian popu- 
lation, and the partial or total destruction of about the 
same proportion of their houses. Over two hundred 
girls and women were carried off into captivity, to be 
forced to accept Islam and to accept Mohammedan hus- 
bands. The Salmas district suffered quite as much as 
Urumia, excepting that the mass of the people fled with 
the Russian troops, and consequently the crimes against 
women were not so numerous. About 800 who re- 
mained in Salmas, and most of whom were old people, 
with some of the poorer and younger women, were 
gathered together by Jevded Bey before his withdrawal 
from Salmas and were massacred. This happened early 
in March. The Salmas villages were left in much the 
same condition as those of Urumia.” (The full text of 
this account is given in Mr. Toynbee’s documents, 
No. 27.) 

No sooner had the Russians reoccupied Urumia, on the 24th 
of May, 1915, than work began on a very large scale. It is 
described in the Report of Relief Distribution in the Urumia 
Plain, June 7, 1915, to January 1, 1916 (printed in the Fourth 
Bulletin of the American Committee for Armenian and Syrian 

21 


Relief, pp. 8-10). This gives the best account of that juncture 
in the distress and confusion of the Christians in the Urumia 
district. 

REFUGEES RETURNED TO THEIR VILLAGES 

“At the beginning of June, 1915, when the people 
emerged from our premises emaciated from sickness and 
malnutrition and crushed by the blow that had fallen 
upon them, they were confronted by a seemingly hope- 
less situation. Practically all of their household fur- 
nishings and food supplies had been plundered ; the same 
was true of their domestic animals on which they de- 
pended in large measure for their subsistence; their 
houses were without any doors and windows and prob- 
ably a full third of them had been demolished. They 
were in terror about going back to their villages; they 
feared their Moslem neighbors who had despoiled them 
of their property, outraged their wives and daughters, 
and killed many of their relatives; they feared too lest 
the Russian troops might again withdraw and leave them 
to the mercy of their enemies; and they were anxious 
lest the missionaries who had sheltered them for the 
previous months, might forget them when they were out 
of sight. Everything tended to make them cling to our 
Mission compounds or their vicinity. To permit them to 
do this was of course out of the question. Our efforts, 
however, to scatter them to their village homes formed 
one of the most pitiful phases of our relief work. The 
people had to go; but as long as they received their 
bread from our yards they would not; and so we had no 
choice but to cut off the food supply, after giving each 
family sufficient flour to support them a week.” 

As always, so now, the Relief Committee endeavored to 
bring the refugees to self-support. They were sent by degrees 
back to the land, so that for a period of three months virtually 
all food distribution ceased. During this stage of the work 
the Committee distributed to the plundered peasants no less 
than 2,661 sickles and scythes, and 1,129 spades. 

By the beginning of August prospects were growing 
brighter; but then a Turkish drive in another portion of the 
war. zone forced the Russians to evacuate Urumia for the 
second time. 


22 


the second Exodus from urumia 

“With the going of their protectors the whole Chris- 
tian population of the plain, with the exception of some 
200 sick and aged who again took refuge in the Mis- 
sion yards, fled, some only to the northern edge of the 
plain, but many to Salmas and Khoi and even Julfa. 
Fortunately it was summer time; but even so the misery 
was intense, and cholera and want and hardship claimed 
many victims in those few weeks. Worse still, much that 
the people had reclaimed of their stolen property and 
gathered from their fields was taken once more by their 
Moslem neighbors; and so after nearly a month of miser- 
able hardship and uncertainty, the poor Syrians and 
Armenians returned to their twice plundered homes. 
Very little relief, however, was given during the next 
few weeks; for from the fields and vineyards much still 
could be secured in the way of food. 

“At this time we calculated that about 10,000 to 
15,000 of the Christian inhabitants would have to be 
supported during the winter months, and we were mak- 
ing our plans accordingly, when a new and overwhelm- 
ing burden descended upon us.” 

INRUSH OF HIGHLANDERS OVERTAXES RELIEF AGENCIES 

The burden was the arrival of about 30,000 Assyrian High- 
landers, who, as we shall read in a later portion of this pamph- 
let, had fled to Persia for their lives. Relief work was prompt 
for them in the district of Salmas, but thousands soon be- 
gan to pour over the pass from Salmas into the plain of 
Urumia. The ruined villages of the Urumia district, already 
crowded, had to give shelter to nearly 16,000 refugees from 
other regions. Fortunately the price of wheat was then very 
low, as the farmers wanted to turn their crops into cash and 
buyers were few ; so great stores of wheat were readily secured. 
Then accurate lists of the refugees were compiled, to serve 
as a basis of distribution. 

The problem of bedding was also pressing. Urumia lies 
4,600 feet above sea level and is cold in winter. The fugitives 
had fled in summer with what they could carry on their backs, 
and had little to keep them warm. The lack of means of trans- 
portation made it necessary to use local supplies of wool and 
cotton, and the quickest and most effective thing to do was to 

23 


make quilts. Therefore the missionaries started a quilt fac- 
tory, which turned out woollen quilts big enough to cover 
several persons. Only one could be issued to a family, so that 
some of the large families of the Highlanders had to sleep 
in relays, and shiver the rest of the time. “But in spite of 
their inadequacy, the 5,510 quilts issued have saved the lives 
of many, for literally thousands were facing the rigors of 
winter without any bedding whatever.” 

The number of those in the plain of Urumia alone who re- 
ceived aid in November and December, 1915, was 29,512. In 
their support the Russian government co-operated, as did the 
Archbishop of Canterbury and other friends of the Oriental 
Christians; but it was a frightful period, especially for the 
little children. In January, 1916, a missionary wrote from 
Urumia as follows: 


“To-day is a wet, shivery, snowy day, the 
first wintry day we’ve had, and in every one 
of the score or more of villages round about 
us are thousands of shivering, naked children 
huddled close together in dark, airless cellars, 
in stables, in partly enclosed balcony-like 
places, grateful for a scrap of dry bread. 
Hundreds are still lying sick with this same 
dry bread as their only nourishment, and 
these miserable holes as their only homes; un- 
til we who have seen so much of it all through 
this awful year have almost ceased to feel 
even a pang at the sight of the long rows of 
graves in the village cemeteries. Personally, 
I feel it a cause of thanksgiving that there are 
several thousands less of children than there 
were last New Year to suffer the miseries of 
hunger, cold, sickness and exile.” 


Though in 1915 the Presbyterian Mission in Urumia dis- 
tributed $105,000 in relief, aside from war levies, ransoms, 
etc., conditions were still frightful. 

24 


Refugee Children on Christmas Day, 1915, wearing clothing just given to them by 

Madame Nikitine, wife of the Russian Consul at Urumia 




URUMIA IN 1916 


The year of our Lord 1916 began with such an over- 
draft on the resources of the Relief Committee in Urumia that 
it had for a while to close down all its work of distribution. 
Then the Russian Consul, Mr. Nikitine, whose efforts on behalf 
of the sufferers are most highly regarded by all acquainted 
with the facts, received funds from the Relief Committee of 
the Caucasus, and distributed them through the various mis- 
sions in Urumia. For this official the Presbyterian Mission 
distributed 35,500 rubles in cash and over 7,000 garments and 
quilts. 

Then with true foresight the Relief Committee began to 
buy up all kinds of seed, including wheat, barley, rice, millet, 
potatoes, beans, etc.; and many of these varieties it had to 
import by wagon or caravan from long distances. For plow- 
ing it was possible to secure only 261 buffaloes and oxen. 
These were not given away, but held in such a way as to secure 
maximum usefulness. Similarly the amount of seed allotted 
was to be returned, with 50 per cent, more to pay the wages 
of the overseers. 

Later in the spring the funds sent to the Russian Consul 
were restricted to the relief of the refugees from Turkey (chief- 
ly the Assyrian Highlanders) , so that the Relief Committee had 
to issue some wheat to needy inhabitants of the Urumia plain. 
It was also necessary for a time to feed over a thousand Kurd- 
ish or Sunni (Moslem) fugitives. 

In closing the Report of Relief Work in the Plain of 
Urumia, January 1 to April 30, 1916, the Rev. R. M. Labaree 
makes the following recommendations born of bitter 
experience : 

“A large number of spades and sickles will undoubt- 
edly be needed by the very poor to help them to get 
work for themselves in the vineyards and harvest fields. 

“If any bedding or clothing is to be provided for the 
coming winter, it should be prepared this summer and 
not wait until cold weather is upon us as last year. 

“Undoubtedly there will he intense poverty next fall 
and winter with high prices for all foodstuffs. It is a 
situation that causes us great concern.” 

26 


DISMAL PROSPECTS FOR NEXT WINTER 

The latest comprehensive picture of the situation in Urumia 
is given in the following letter from H. P. Packard, M.D., 
dated July 21, 1916. It is addressed to Mr. Paul Shimmon, 
who communicated it to the New York Times of September 
18th. The explanatory notes, in square brackets, have been 
revised by the compiler of this pamphlet. 

“Relief burdens are still heavy, and it is hard to know 
what is the least that we can do for the sake of the Chris- 
tians. You know from personal experience how hard it 
is to get the Moslem masters [who as a rule own the 
land on which Christians live] to do anything for their 
Christian subjects. We do not want to use relief money 
for the advantage of these masters, but it may be that 
in many cases Christians cannot get any help from their 
masters to reroof their homes, and may have to sit in 
ruins if we do not do something for them. [The vil- 
lage masters, as a rule, have also been hard-hit by the 
war.] It may be that by giving part of the timber we 
may be able to induce masters to supply the remainder. 
We sincerely hope that there will not have to be as much 
crowding during the coming winter as there was in the 
past. [It is the third winter in Urumia and Salmas since 
they were destroyed.] Some of the villages, such as 
Balou, Gachen, Walinda, and Geogtapa have been ter- 
ribly crowded with the people of Tergawar, Dasht, and 
Mergawar [districts on the Perso-Turkish border which 
had been harried even before the war began], besides 
many from Marbishoo and Nochea [Turkish frontier], 
as well as some from Tyari and other places in the moun- 
tains over the border. The Matran [Metropolitan Bishop 
of the Nestorian Church living in Nochea, Turkey, near 
the border] has gone to Umbi, in Tergawar, and is now 
sitting there, and 'others are beginning to push up toward 
the foothills; but I fear that there will be no earnest 
effort to get these people established for the winter, and 
we may expect them to return to the plain, even if peace 
should be declared in the fall. [This was written before 
August, when the Turks recaptured Bitlis and Moush, 
towns which have since come once more into Russian 
hands.] Their villages are entirely in ruins, and there 

27 


is no timber to be found without taking it from the 
Urumia plain, and the scarcity of cattle will make it im- 
possible to accomplish this work this autumn, even if it 
were considered safe for the people to go back now, and 
we cannot get this assurance from the authorities. Some 
movement has begun toward Bashkala [on the Turkish 
border], but it promises to be small, and the investiga- 
tion made in the mountains by David, the brother of Mar 
Shimun, and Malick Khoshaba and Malick Ismael, and 
their men makes them feel that there is no hope of get- 
ting back to their homes before winter. This means that 
the mountaineers [the bulk of the Nestorian Christians] 
will be on us for another winter, and that relief work 
in Urumia will be heavy for some time. These moun- 
taineers have had no fields to sow; they have no harvest. 
They have had to depend on charity so far, and will 
have to depend on relief until they can return to their 
homes. 


OUTLOOK FOR FOOD AND CLOTHING 

“We already have begun to make quilts. We shall 
make 2,000 now and 2,000 or 3,000 in the fall if we 
see that there is need for them. We have also arranged 
to spend $3,000 for simple garments to be ready for the 
late fall. I succeeded in concluding the first wheat pur- 
chase to-day. We got fifty loads at 65 krans (about 
$8 now), and have had 200 loads offered in dole for 60 
krans per load. The crops are small here, and we ex- 
pect that prices will be high this year, for there was no 
sowing in Tergawar, Dasht, or Mergawar, and the Sulduz 
sowing was much less than usual, and much of the young 
wheat has been pastured. The Anzal crop is about half 
of the normal, and Somai also cannot furnish much for 
outside. [These are fertile districts in noncombatant 
Persia, but crushed by war conditions.] 

WHAT IS OUR CHRISTIAN DUTY TO THE KURDS? 

“One of the greatest needs of the present time is that 
among the Kurds. I realize that this question will not be 
popular with many Christians in America, as well as in 
Persia. The Begzadi Kurds who are left on this side of 
the border are rayats (subjects) and not servants of the 

28 


chiefs, who are the riflemen. We all know that when 
fortune favors them these rayats are almost as preda- 
tory as the servant class, but when the servants ran olf 
with the chiefs they stripped the rayats of everything 
that they could take away, and we see these people 
starving now. They have nothing to reap for the coming 
year, so their condition is far more deplorable than that 
of the Christians. There will be few to appeal for the 
Kurds, but this is an opportunity that Christendom is not 
likely to have again. If we would follow the teachings 
of the Christ whom we profess to follow we would pray 
more for these same Kurds than we have, and we should 
be glad in this time of their great need to give to them 
and show them that the Master’s teaching is different 
than that of their prophet.” 

SUMMARY OF CONDITIONS IN THE PLAIN OF URUMIA 
We may summarize the plight of the Nestorian and other 
racially related Christian groups native to the Plain of Urumia, 
Province of Adarbaijan, as follows: 

They have been raided by the Turks, and by the Kurds, 
relieved by the Russians, then conquered and occupied for 
over four months by the Turks, relieved a second time by the 
Russians, who still hold the country, in spite of the panicky 
flight of August, 1915. They have suffered the horrors of a 
war zone, and have been inundated with refugees even more 
wretched than themselves. They have had epidemics of 
typhoid, dysentery and other diseases, and have had to survive 
on rations of coarse bread and salt. In spite of their losses 
they have the will to live and are headed toward self-support. 
The sufferings of this, the second of the three great groups, 
are bitter enough; but after all the place of honor belongs to 
the third division, the mountaineers of Mar Shimun. 

CHAPTER IV. 

MAR SHIMUN’S HIGHLANDERS AND THEIR FIGHT FOR 
LIFE, AS DEPICTED IN THE THRILLING NARRA- 
TIVE OF MR. SHLEMON, OF BERWAR 

The third group of the Assyrian Christians are the moun- 
taineers in the valleys of the Great Zab. Their troubles be- 
gan very promptly, months before the Armenian massacres. 

29 


KURDS TAKE COUNSEL TOGETHER AGAINST CHRISTIANS 
Mr. Abraham Shlemon, of Berwar, long connected with 
the American Mission, an exceptionally well-informed eye- 
witness of the defence of the Christians, has stated* that in the 
fall of 1914, when the Turks began to take part in the war 
against Russia and her allies, all the sheikhs, aghas, and 
various heads of all kinds of Kurds from Neri and Rowanduz 
on the east, and south to Jezireh north of Mosul, including 
all the tribes in the regions of the Tigris and of the Great 
Zab, were planning and making great preparations for the 
spring of 1915, to combine and sweep over the lands of the 
Christians and to exterminate them all. They had often said 
that these are “the little Russia”; if we kill these, then “the 
big Russia” will be powerless in these regions. 

JEALOUSY OF RUSSIAN INFLUENCE 
It is a fact that Russian influence had been steadily ex- 
tending in Persia. In consequence of the Anglo-Russian Con- 
vention of 1907 the province of Azerbaijan (Adarbaijan) had 
passed actually under Russian influence. Russian troops had 
occupied its capital Tabriz on April 30, 1909, and the city 
of Urumia in December, 1911. Add to this the fact that the 
entire Assyrian diocese of Superghan, Persia, had gone over 
to the Russian Church in 1897-1898, and we see why the 
Turks might well fear lest the Assyrian Highlanders of Turkey 
would sympathize with the great Christian power of Russia. 

BROTHER OF PATRIARCH ARRESTED 
Therefore, in the spring of 1915 the Turkish authorities 
arrested Hormuzd, a brother of Mar Shimun, then a student 
in Constantinople, and took him to Mosul, to be held as a 
hostage until Mar Shimun should enter the war against 
Russia. What has become of the Patriarch’s brother is not 
known to this day. Mar Shimun himself took refuge in Diz, 
in the mountains, some four hours from Qudshanis. 

MAR SHIMUN APPEALS TO GERMAN CONSUL 

“In the latter part of March, 1915, when the storm 
was about to break against all the tribes of Christians, 
Mar Shimun made an effort to avert the calamity by ap- 

* Mr. Shlemon wrote out his experiences in Syriac for Mr. Shimmon, 
who translated the remarkable narrative and then revised the translation 
in conference with the compiler of this pamphlet. 

30 


Kurdish and Christian Frontiersmen from Tergawar and Dasht 






pealing to the German consul at Mosul. As we learn 
from Mr. Shlemon, Mar Shimun asked one of his chief- 
tains farther in the interior to forward a letter to that 
official, Mr. Holstein, begging him not to listen to the 
stories circulated by the Kurds, who were intent on the 
wholesale murder of the Christians, and to do whatever 
was in his power to defend them. When this letter was 
carried to the German Consul, be it said to his credit 
that he was able for a time to stay the attacks, and he 
secured the issue of firmans in Turkish language that 
if any Christians were murdered they would hang every 
Kurd implicated. The immediate result was that for a 
time the Kurds were kept quiet and the danger was tem- 
porarily averted. 

SAVAGERY OF THE RETREATING TURKS 

“Meanwhile, however, Halil Bey [a relative of Enver 
Pasha], who was at the head of the Turkish army oper- 
ating against Russia in northwestern Persia, met a crush- 
ing defeat in the plain of Salmas on the 2d of May, 1915. 
When retiring in despondency his army massacred all 
the villagers of Gawar on their way west, so that the 
Nestorian villages of Gagoran, Pirzalan, Maskhudawa, 
Mamikan, Diza and Zezan were destroyed. They killed 
nearly one thousand people, carried a great number 
captive, and took all their cattle. Some families lost as 
many as seventy head of cattle apiece. But as the Rus- 
sians advanced later on, the Kurdish tribes and Turks 
of those regions, including those of Bashkala, Van, 
Moush and Bitlis left and fled, killing everything that 
came along in their route and devastating the whole 
region. Very soon after this, widespread rumors were 
circulated that the Christians would be massacred. 

THE VALI OF MOSUL ATTACKS THE MOUNTAINEERS 

“In the early part of June the Vali of Mosul began to 
get ready and collect a big army against the Nestorians. 
He had some 7,000 Turkish troops with regular 
artillery and some 15,000 Kurds from all those regions. 
In twelve days they reached Berwar and Amadia, on the 
banks of the Great Zab, a tributary of the Tigris. A few 
days before this some fourteen villages out of twenty- 

32 


one in Berwar had made their escape towards Tyari, on 
the other side of the River Zab. It was then hoped that 
the Russian army would penetrate these wild moun- 
tainous regions and hold them for good. On June 18th 
(N. S.) the Vali of Mosul, Rashid Pasha, reached Ber- 
war and after a few days’ rest attacked Tyari, from 
Asheta the largest village to Lezan of Malick Khoshaba. 
Then when the people of Lower Tyari, the refugees from 
Berwar and the other Syrians saw that the strength of 
the Turks was greater than they could alone combat, they 
crossed the River Zab and destroyed the Gemani bridge, 
which is near Lezan. The people of Asheta and 
Sarispedo crossed the river and destroyed the Khiu 
bridge and also the bridge of Malick Ismael de Chamba, 
which is a little north; and they also destroyed the bridge 
on the Lower Tyari below Julamerk. 

AN ARMED EXODUS TOWARD THE RUSSIAN LINES 

“A few days later the sister of the Patriarch wrote to 
her brother, who had in the meanwhile come to the Rus- 
sian commanding officer at Salmas in Persia to ask for 
assistance, saying that the Lower Tyari had already been 
destroyed by the Turkish army. All that Mar Shimun 
could get in the way of assistance was some 200 rifles 
of an old type and a few rounds of ammunition and a 
few hundred Cossacks. The latter were given him as 
escort for a certain distance to act as a rearguard. They 
returned again, and the Patriarch with his own men were 
left alone to venture into the interior of the country. 
On the way near Qudshanis they met bands of Kurds 
hiding behind the rocks north of Diz, and when they saw 
them, on June 28th (N. S.), after a sharp skirmish they 
fled. On reaching Qudshanis, Mar Shimun delivered an 
address to his men, asking them to defend their lives and 
honor of their families and freedom against their per- 
secutors. 

REFUGEES BATTLE FOR THEIR LIVES 
“The battle in the meanwhile was going on be- 
tween the Vali and the Assyrian Highlanders. The ma- 
jority of the villages were, however, empty, and the in- 
habitants were terror stricken and fleeing; everything 
deserted. They had gone to the top of the moun- 

33 


was 


tains with their families, men staying behind to offer 
resistance to the big armies confronting them. The 
mountains are so steep here in Waltu that when the 
Christians saw some dead bodies in the deep valleys 
they could not climb down to them, but tied on ropes, 
thus descended to the valleys, where they found they 
were the bodies of some Kurds. They took off their 
precious weapons and ascended with ropes again. For 
a time here the Kurds got the worst of it, and a great 
number fell before Christian tribes. The latter were 
fighting on the east and the Vali on the west, with the 
River Zab between them. But the Christians could not 
accomplish much against superior modern artillery 
which was brought against these regions for the first 
time in their history, and the people were terror stricken. 
The villages of Sarispedo and Asheta, the latter a place 
of 500 families, were destroyed, as were also Geramon, 
Arosh, Halmon, Zaweta, Minyanish, Margi, Leza and 
Zarni, with ten villages of Berwar. They destroyed 
over fifteen churches and took off all their old manu- 
scripts and service books, kept for generations. It seems 
again evident that Mr. Holstein, the German Consul, 
wishing to spare the Nestorian Christians, sent word to 
the Vali of Mosul to return from his expedition of de- 
struction; and when the Vali went back to Mosul there 
was quiet for a while again before the final storm broke. 

“From the middle of June to the middle of July there 
were at least three small engagements between the 
Christians and the Kurds. In the absence of the Turkish 
regular troops the Christians were more than able to 
repel the aggressive Kurds and send them back to their 
various places up to the latter part of August. 

STARVING IN MOUNTAIN FASTNESSES 

“But very soon the Christians had to give up their 
homes and take to the tops of lofty mountains. With 
their families and what they could bring in the way of 
cattle the Christians stayed in the mountains. From 
twelve various regions and tribes the Christians fled to 
mountain fastnesses and began to suffer from hunger, 
lack of salt and all the inconveniences of a siege, with 
no prospect of any immediate relief, flarley we nt up tq 

34 


fifteen dollars a load, wheat twenty dollars, salt to two 
dollars a pound and it could not be found anywhere. 
They formed a very huge camp on the top of the Tal 
mountains, spreading here and there, one day’s journey, 
with the family of Patriarch in the middle, in the 
famous Church of 
Mar A u d i s h u , 
built in a rock. 

From it a very 
small spring of 
water comes out, 
which could not be 
sufficient to give 
drink to those 
round about. Peo- 
ple could not eat 
meat without salt 
and could preserve 
nothing, and they 
began soon to be- 
come lean and 
emaciated for lack 
of proper food. 

Then food became 
very scarce among 
the masses of the 
people. Mr. Shle- 
mon, who was present himself, writes: “When I went to 
buy some wheat from outside, people who knew 
me came after me crying for some bread, and we could 
not stop the wailing of children. Everywhere I went the 
mountains were luxuriant with flowers and grass. Peo- 
ple were sitting by hundreds under mulberry trees that 
when the fruit was ripe they might pick up something 
for their little ones. Some would stay for two weeks; 
they had nothing to eat but herbs and berries. I saw 
many men who formerly were well to do and those whose 
‘table was always spread,’ as they say; now they were 
dying for lack of a piece of bread and were going from 
house to house to get something for their little ones.” 
Up till the middle of August that was the condition of 

35 





43 



the people. Then there was a short relief when the har- 
vest in the mountains was ripe, but what had been sown 
in these regions was very little and did not last long. 
Sometimes the Christians would venture farther away 
and try to gather wheat from the fields, when often the 
Kurds would descend on them and kill them. 

WAR COUNCIL OF CHIEFTAINS 

“In the middle of July Mar Shimun came to Mar 
Audishu in Tal and called together the heads of his 
tribes and his Malicks (chieftains, literally kings) to 
consult as to what was best to do. For it was evident 
that soon the whole people would starve on the top of the 
mountains. They all felt they should go to the frontiers 
of Persia, a few days’ journey, and ask Russian as- 
sistance to get out. The Patriarch, with forty men, risked 
their lives, and for two days and two nights they had 
nothing to eat but what they could get from the ears of 
the corn on the way. One whole day they had to sleep 
and bask before the hot sun of July and did not dare to 
move lest the Kurds near by should recognize them ; they 
would be instantly killed. The Kurds saw them from a 
distance and took them for rocks. After much hard- 
ship they reached the Russian camp and commander 
in Bashkala near Salmas in Persia. No immediate as- 
sistance could be given them at that time. In the mean- 
while word came from the south and west that the Pasha 
of Mosul was preparing a formidable army, much larger 
than the first one, to come and destroy the remnants of 
the Christians. Some of them had by this time gone back 
or some had still stayed in their homes with their fam- 
ilies. The people of Tkhuma put up a great defense 
on September 27th and 28th. But while they were 
building trenches for themselves the Kurds were destroy- 
ing them with guns. All they had were a few anti- 
quated rifles and often home-made ammunition. The 
Turks destroyed Gundikta, Mazraya, Inner Tkhuma and 
many other places. 

“When the people arrived at a high pass, they saw 
the sexton of the Church of Mar Audishu of Tal, with- 
out hat, a censer in his hand and the copy of the Gos- 
pel used in the Church service in his sack, and the censer 

38 


full of the incense. He was going ‘to assist against the 
Kurds and Turks.’ For he fully believed that the pres- 
ence of the Book of the Gospels would defeat the enemy. 

“the valley of death” 

“But the enemy had gathered from everywhere. That 
very same day, Saturday, September 29th, the Patriarch 
had arrived at Tal in time for the last rites at the funeral 
of his brother, Eshia (Isaiah). On the next morning 
some 4,000 Kurds came down upon the Patriarch and 
his congregation, in what seemed to be ‘the valley of 
death.’ It was the most solemn occasion for the little 
band when the sound of rifles was heard from another 
direction toward which they were headed. ‘From one 
party of us,’ the same person present says, ‘over five 
hundred were killed and 200 children and women were 
taken captive, and a very large number of sheep were 
carried from the people in this valley, with all the house- 
hold furniture that one could think of, cattle and all 
kind of goods which the people had saved till the pres- 
ent.’ The Kurds had come first to the church to look for 
the Patriarch whom they had heard had lately arrived 
there. Not finding him there they unearthed the body of 
his dead brother, hoping to discover money or Church 
property. Failing in that they hurled the body down 
the valley, where it was afterwards seen in the water. 

DEATH GRAPPLE AMONG THE CRAGS 

“There were some of the Christian young men on the 
top of the high mountains defending Ribbat and shooting 
at the Kurds. When the latter heard and found out where 
these young men were they headed for them. These 
Christians were all killed, but they killed a large number 
of the Kurds and sold their lives dear. Then some of the 
Tkhuma and Tyari people headed for these high im- 
passible mountains (Beth Dikhni and Bar Shinna). From 
time immemorial the Christians had planned that when 
they should be hard pressed by the enemy they would 
climb these high crags; so all who were unable to 
escape through the valley took refuge here. The Kurds 
who came from the east and from the north pressed 
westward and completely blocked the way of the Chris- 
tians, while the Government troops and other Kurdish 

39 


chiefs came from the south and isolated them. For six 
days and nights these men, women and children had 
nothing to eat. More than 2,000 were killed and over 
500 were carried captive. 

RUTHLESS PLUNDER OF CHRISTIAN PROPERTY 

“The Turks, after losing some 300, were exhausted. 
As they despaired of climbing the crags, they returned 
and then burned the whole country of all the tribes. 
They destroyed more than sixty churches. From one 
church they carried off booty, over 180 loads, the 
property of the church and what the people had de- 
posited there as being the safest place. 

“It is asserted that altogether more than ‘300,000 sheep 
were carried off and not less than 50,000 head of cattle, 
together with all the property which these highlanders 
had collected for ages.’ In fact, they subsisted on sheep, 
cattle and honey. Nearly all the beehives were either 
destroyed or those near their dwellings were taken by 
the Kurds for themselves. The destruction of the Chris- 
tian property was complete — nothing was spared. 

SAFE BUT PENNILESS IN A FOREIGN LAND 

“These Assyrian highlanders were making for the 
plateaus of Salmas and Urumia in Persia, where the 
Russian army was. There can be nothing more pathetic, 
more touching and heart-rending than to leave home, 
church and everything behind, and then press on to an- 
other country. Their only hope for living and for sub- 
sistence was in the fact that the Russian army was there. 
They arrived in rags, barefoot, hungry, exhausted and 
weary of existence; they began a life of bitter exile, ex- 
haustion and destitution, the like of which the world has 
never seen. While passing near Qudshanis, the Pa- 
triarchal seat, on September 30th (N. S.) they were 
again attacked by wild Kurds from the mountain passes, 
but the young men once more showed their true mettle 
and betook themselves to the passes and drove them off. 
In the few past months some 5,000 had already escaped 
for their lives to the plains of Bashkala and Salmas. 
The Patriarch was now in at last with some 30,000 more 
of his people.” 


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“One party had been left behind, who were besieged in 
the high mountain passes and had not effected an escape 
when the Patriarch took the 30,000 to the plains. They 
were about 10,000 in number and at last made their 
escape, most of them reaching Salmas on October 7th 
and 8th. Part of these remained in Bashkala and in the 
plain of Albak and began to gather the remnant of har- 
vest for daily food. 

Mr. Paul Shimmon of Urumia completes Mr. Shlemon’s 
narrative thus: 

SHELTERLESS ON PERSIAN PLATEAU 

“The Russians for some reason or other never allowed 
the Assyrians who had escaped to enter the Caucasus, 
and so they remained in the plains of Salmas and 
Urumia, Persia. Winter was now approaching and 
various epidemics had been at work. There was hardly 
housing accommodation for all the refugees. The Rus- 
sian authorities tried their very best to house them, but 
many were seen for months at large in the streets, and 
often washing their clothes in the bitter cold of Novem- 
ber in the running brooks. (Salmas is about 4,500 feet 
above the sea level.) The Moslems would never con- 
sent to the presence of Christians in their families, as 
they regard them ceremonially unclean. The homes of 
the Salmas Christians had been already ruined during 
the past winter, when the Russians had left the country 
in the beginning of 1915, so that housing accommoda- 
tions were extremely limited, and in the winter months 
many lived in the barns and roofless enclosures. In 
some houses there were twenty to thirty persons in 
one room. 


CHRISTENDOM SENDS ASSISTANCE 

“Measures of relief were at once begun by the Amer- 
ican Missionaries, and the Russians have sent money and 
clothing. The Archbishop of Canterbury’s Committee in 
London, as well as the Lord Mayor’s Armenian Relief 
Fund, the Friends of Armenia, and other agencies, 
have sent most generous assistance. The contribu- 
tions of the Rockefeller Foundation have been most 

42 


liberal. But it is one of the saddest things in life that 
the majority of those who have died have perished of ex- 
posure, want, sickness and unsanitary conditions. Then 
at the best all that the highlanders have been able to 
get in the way of relief has been a loaf of dry bread and 
one quilt for a family of five or more. The best way of 
appreciating what has been done is to count not those 
who have perished, for all would have perished, but 
rather those saved from the clutches of starvation 
and disease.” 


CHAPTER V. 

THE PLIGHT OF THE MOUNTAINEERS DURING THEIR 
WINTER IN AND NEAR THE PLAIN OF SALMAS 

Confirmation of the above statements of conditions is 
given by the Rev. E. W. McDowell, of Salmas, who wrote on 
the 17th of October, 1915, as follows: “The mass of them 
are without shelter of any kind and also without bedding. 
They are sleeping on the bare ground without covering. The 
rains have begun and the winter promises to set in early. 
What all this means to these thousands who are without 
shelter you need not be told. 

“Since coming down a great many of them have been taken 
sick with a peculiar form of bowel trouble, such as the moun- 
taineers have been having here. Dr. David Yohannan esti- 
mates there are as many as 1,000 cases. The fatality is not 
as great as might be expected, but there are a great many 
deaths. One tribe reported forty deaths within a week. I 
have seen the dead lying on the roadside, and the women 
carrying their dead, orders to move on giving them little time 
to die decently or to be buried with respect. I gave no re- 
lief while there. Along the road they had gathered up a little 
grain; the Russians were giving out 1,200 loads, and help 
was being given on the threshing floor and from door to door. 
I have been making a complete list, so that when we are ready 
to begin we shall have them classified and shall be able to 
handle them. We shall give flour or wheat in weekly al- 
lowances. The cost per head will be about five shahis 
(2 cents). I shall refrain from giving as long as I see they 
can subsist on what they get from other sources. 

43 


“Bedding* is needed as badly as food. There is not much 
choice between dying from hunger or dying from cold.” 

On February 26 and on March 6, 1916, Mr. McDowell 
writes that he has in Salmas and environs alone 17,700 
refugees under his personal supervision. They are dis- 
tributed as follows: Salmas proper, 10,985, with one village 
yet to be heard from; Khoi, 3,200; Albak and Bashkala, 3,500. 
These statistics are based upon a new listing of refugees. To 
them have been distributed some 4,000 quilts and a little cloth- 
ing. He needs more money to buy seed wheat and farm ani- 
mals. He plans to assign one yoke of oxen to every four 
houses for their common use, and then to claim the animals 
in the fall and trade them for grain. This plan gives the 
refugees the labor of the oxen during the summer and re- 
lieves them of their support next winter. As the oxen will be 
traded for grain after the harvest is in and grain is cheap, it 
should be possible to secure in this way large quantities of 
food for the winter months. 


The following letter, written in Syriac in February, 1916, 
by an eyewitness, is sanctioned for publication by the Pa- 
triarch. The author is Mr. Yoel B. Rustam, of Charagushi 
(Urumia River), a graduate of the American College at 
Urumia. It was translated by Mr. Shimmon and revised by 
the compiler of this pamphlet. It gives a dark picture of con- 
ditions in some of the towns on the Turko-Persian border. 
(See The Near East , July 7, 1916.) : 

DESPERATION IN BASHKALA 

“Those who live in Bashkala, on the frontier of Turkey 
and Persia, are in a most wretched condition. Up to 
the present (February), once only have some ninety 
loads of wheat been sent to them by the American mis- 
sionaries. But what will this do for some 6,600 souls? 
Some have gone into the fields and villages to find rem- 
nants of unharvested wheat and pick them up to live on. 
Here and there a man had a sheep or a mule which he 
was able to take along in his flight; that has since been 
sold and entirely eaten up. Now starvation is carrying 
them off mercilessly. Over one-third of them have died 
this winter. Of the 6,600, some 2,000, tired of life and 

44 


existence, thought to themselves that unless we find a 
remedy we will starve They said, ‘Let us return to 
our homes in the heart of Kurdistan, where we will either 
find a shelter for ourselves and live, or else we will die 
in our homes, and be buried with our fathers.’ They 
have gone. For the past two months not a word has ever 
been heard from them. Whether they are living or dead 
no one yet knows. 

HOUSELESS BECAUSE NON-MOSLEM 

“About 4,000 have gone to Khoi, a city in the north- 
western corner of Persia, and there they were in just as 
bad a condition. Nearly 1,500 of these have already 
died. There are no houses in which they can live. Khoi 
is now altogether inhabited by Moslems, and they could 
not think of polluting their premises by the presence of 
Christians, whom they consider religiously unclean. The 
Mohammedan governor compelled the Moslems, through 
the influence of the Russians there, to open their barns 
and stables for some to live in. The Christians are so 
lean and emaciated that death will get at them wholesale. 

SHIVERING IN THE OPEN STREET 

“I went into the villages of Salmas in Persia, where 
these Christian Highlanders are existing and went from 
house to house and in person saw their condition. I 
visited Khusrabad first, a great centre, where in normal 
times some 500 Syrian families used to live, beside the 
newly arrived 13,000 that had been scattered through the 
villages of this plain (Salmas). In Khusrabad there 
were 3,200 refugees at the beginning. For some of them 
there are houses in which they have been accommodated. 
Others are living in barns, woodsheds or stables. For 
others not even these are to be had, and they are living 
out in the streets, sitting under the walls on the high- 
ways. They suffer from cold, as they have nothing in 
the way of bedding and winter clothing, and winter 
months are severe. (It is 4,000 to 5,000 feet above sea- 
level.) In every room, stable or barn there are living 
anywhere from five to thirty souls. They are given six 
rubles per month for their support. The ruble has very 
much depreciated in value, and they do not know what 

45 • 



A REFUGEE ARCHDEACON 


is best to do with this money; whether to spend it for 
wheat, bread, fuel, clothing, kerosene, etc. Bread is now 
high. Many, therefore, purchase wheat and grind it with 
hand-mills and then boil and eat it. 

WHOLE FAMILIES CROWDED UNDER A SINGLE QUILT 

“These people are dying for actual lack of 
nourishment and from bitter cold. Those who are 
so fortunate as to be in the houses gather around 
the oven, [which is dug in the ground, and spread 
a quilt on a low table placed over the oven, in 
which they have put a few pieces of charcoal; and then 
they tuck their feet inside the quilt to get warm. They 
call this arrangement a kursi .] A quilt has been given 
by the missionaries to each family of five or more to 
spread over them. They have nothing under them, and 
they sleep on the bare ground. Those who are sick and 
those who are well are all huddled together under this 
kursi. 

SICK LYING ON THE BARE GROUND 

“There is hardly a house in which there are no 
sick. In some families two or three members are sick 
and they do not talk, having almost no voice left, for 
there is nothing for them to eat excepting dry bread, 
and this is secured with difficulty. Those who are well, 
when the sun shines stand in the sun to warm themselves, 
while the sick ones cannot do even that and remain on 
the bare ground. It was most pitiable when passing 
through the streets and villages; I saw sick persons pros- 
trate on the ground under the walls here and there. 
There is hardly a family in which deaths have not taken 
place. In some places parents have died and the little 
ones are thrown on their own resources. 

BOYS BURY THEMSELVES FOR WARMTH 

“In passing through a village I came to woods on 
the outskirts. Near it there was a barn which was partly 
unroofed; it had also no door. I saw two boys of fifteen 
and five years of age sleeping outside this barn. On go- 
ing inside I saw two other boys about ten and eight years 
of age. They had buried, themselves in the chaff. I 
asked them, ‘Why do you do so?’ They answered, 

47 


‘Because there is no room for us in the village. We 
have nothing to cover ourselves with, so we have buried 
ourselves in the chaff; it is both a quilt and a mattress.’ 
They further said, ‘We four are brothers. Our father 
died only day before yesterday. Our mother died a 
week before he did. We have also lost another brother.’ 
Their color was pale, so it made one almost sick to look 
at them. They had no fire. There were no other rela- 
tives to look after them. I doubt very much if they could 
keep alive much longer in that condition. All that I 
saw they had of this world’s goods was an old teapot and 
one dish. Then they had bought a quilt a few days be- 
fore for their father, which they were now using for 
themselves. 


DOGS DISPOSE OF THE DEAD 

“In one family of seven three had died and two others 
were so sickly that one could not expect them to get 
well. I went a little way into the woods near the vil- 
lage and saw a person who had been buried four days 
previous. He had been ill and had been thrown into the 
woods, as he had no one to look after him. After he 
had died one of the boys in the barn had gone and dug 
a place for him in the woods and had merely thrown 
some dirt over him. In some cases the wife or the daugh- 
ter buries the family dead. Many are so lightly 
covered that very soon the dogs get them out. 

STARVING IN SILENCE 

“Out of the 3,200 refugees in this village 1,000 had 
already died, and there were many who were very ill. In 
another place I saw a mother and two children, a girl 
and a boy, sitting under the kursi warming themselves. 
The mother was groaning faintly, but the voice of the 
little girl could hardly be heard, as she had nearly 
starved to death. The little boy was lying quietly beside 
his mother and made no sound. The father and two 
daughters had already gone to their rest. Just to think, 
also, that many of these people were once well-to-do and 
had plenty to eat and to wear, and have now been re- 
duced to this condition, longing for a warm meal to 
satisfy their cravings. 


43 


In another village, Ula, I was told many of the peo- 
ple from Qudshanis (the seat, of Mar Shimun, the Assy- 
rian Patriarch) and other people were living there. At 
the beginning, in the fall, when they came here there were 
about 900 people there altogether. Now only some 350 
are left, and they are in the condition that I have de- 
scribed already. Late in the evening, while passing 
through this same village, I saw a woman with nothing 
but a thin spread wrapped over her, and she was lying 
near the wall in the street, and could not be expected to 
live many days. 

DESTITUTE UPON THE DUNGHILLS 

“In another village I saw people lying on manure 
piles in the open and in the streets; nearly all were sick. 
One woman was knitting, but she was wailing bitterly 
and shedding floods of tears, as she thought of her former 
home, and now she was left at the door of strangers with 
nothing on which to live. 

THE TERRIBLE TOLL 

“From all the investigation that I was able to 
make and from my own personal observation, I 
am sure that over 5,000 out of the 13,000 that 
had come to the plain of Salmas must have perished, 
and this is the opinion of others also. These refugees 
are too far removed from centres of interest and are 
still surrounded by Moslems, so that very little practical 
help comes to them other than that which is given by 
the charitable organizations; and this is not sufficient to 
satisfy their hunger for bread and to give them enough 
clothing and bedding to be comfortable at night.” 

Reserving the estimated death rate for later discussion 
(Chap. VII.) , we note that the general impression made by Mr. 
Rustam’s narrative, and particularly his statements as regards 
distress in Bashkala, are confirmed by the subjoined letter 
from the Patriarch himself. 


49 


CHAPTER VI. 

LETTERS FROM THE ASSYRIAN PATRIARCH AND 
FROM HIS SISTER 

Mar Shimun thanks a society in London which had sent 
him five hundred pounds for immediate use. The letter, writ- 
ten on the 25th of April, 1916, is addressed to Mr. Paul 
Shimmon, who has translated it literally. 

“From the Patriarchal Cell , receive prayers and blessings! 

“To our beloved son Mr. Paulus— peace and blessings in the 
Lord Christ. 

“It was necessary that we should have written you long be- 
fore this, but we thought that it would be better that we delay 
till we could send you the list of the names to whom money 

was distributed. Now we 
are sending the list. When 
it reaches your hands 
translate it into English 
and send it to the Society 
[in London]. We have 
sent our acknowledgment 
to the Society directly. . . . 
We are very much afraid 
concerning our letters, 
that they may not reach 
you at all. In this post at 
Diliman [in Salmas, N. 
W. Persia] they do not ac- 
cept registered letters for 
America and England. 

“Indeed, we owe great 
gratitude to the exalted 
kingdom of Russia; it has 
assisted our nation with 
money, clothing and medi- 
cine. At the time that we received the money which was 
sent by you, it was especially beneficial to the latest refugees 
(the Tyari people) in Bashkala. They were dying of starva- 

50 



tion. We hired some mules and sent wheat, which was bought 
by Mr. McDowell [a missionary distributing funds of the 
American Committee for Armenian and Syrian Relief, and also 
funds from England], and we also gave money for some to 
come here to purchase food for themselves and their families. 
Though we have received help for our nation from Russia, 
England and America, again the needs of our people are very 
great and heart-breaking. 

STILL SICK AND STARVING 

“Even now some people are dying of starvation. Very 
often some come to our door when they are barely able 
to stand on their feet from hunger. Who can refuse 
those who are in such condition? Now they have also 
a new kind of disease; their feet are swelling and getting blue, 
so that they cannot move at all, and they have to be assisted 
in everything. There are families in Bashkala [in Turkey near 
the frontier] whose sick members from November till now are 
eating bread only. How can they live? They ask for some 
milk when dying; it cannot be supplied them. The condition 
of our nation is very wretched. Mr. McDowell is now giving 
seed for those who can sow, but they have not enough oxen. 
The Russians also will give, but the things are getting delayed, 
and we do not know what is to become of us in the meanwhile. 

“We are hoping that you will do everything in your ability 
that the Christians in America may assist and that part of our 
nation may escape misery. Surma [the Patriarch’s sister] has 
written you before this; we do not know if you have received 
her letters or not. We will hope that you will write us 
everything. 

“The Grace of our Lord Christ be with you. 

“Diliman, Salmas, Persia, April 12 [0. S.], 1916.” 


51 


Surma, elder sister of Mar Shimun, holds a position of 
unique influence in the Assyrian community. She bears wit- 
ness to the bitter needs of her people, and incidentally shows 
how they look to their Patriarch for relief. 

LETTER OF SURMA, SISTER OF THE PATRIARCH 

Translation of extracts from a letter from Surma, the sister 
of Patriarch Mar Shimun, written from Diliman, Salmas, 
Persia, April 30, 1916, to a friend. 

“It was arranged and planned some time ago that we 
should leave for Bashkala and Bradost, and that the Russians 
would give us oxen, and the Americans seed to sow there. 
But this did not materialize. For even now the oxen have not 
come. Mr. McDowell (the American missionary) is giving 
some seed and oxen for some to sow here in these regions. 
The Russians helped us in clothing, money and medicines. 
But again the needs of our nation are very great. I wish you 
could some time see people as they eat their bread in our 
house, when they mix their tears with their meals. Some, you 
will see, their lips are dried, and they can hardly swallow their 
morsels. 

THROWS HIMSELF ON HOSPITALITY OF PATRIARCH 

“The other day when the Patriarch was leaving the 
Divankhana (reception room) a Tyari man threw himself pros- 
trate on the ground at his feet and cried out aloud, ‘0 Kasie’ 
(a filial expression for the Patriarch), ‘help! I and my fam- 
ily are nearly dying from starvation.’ His color was pale, 
and he seemed to be out of his mind, poor man. Mar Shimun 
gave him some money. A woman came to the kitchen to Rome, 
my sister, when her tears were running down, and said that for 
two days she and her family had nothing to eat. She was 
not able to stand much longer on her feet. We fed her and 
gave something also for her family. There are so many such 
pathetic cases! How can one refuse those who are in such 
a condition? 

“I wish that our house was as full as when we were in 
Qudshanis. Mr. McDowell has truly great care for the work 
of relief, and he is working most faithfully with all his heart, 
and is full of sympathy for our nation. But as I wrote above 
the needs are very great.” 


52 


CHAPTER VII. 


HOW MANY REFUGEES MUST BE CARED FOR? WHAT 
IS THEIR DEATH RATE? 

The refugees that the American Committee has thus far 
aided in keeping alive are the survivors of a considerably 
larger Christian population. The most recent statistics giv- 
ing its number and composition prior to the war are tabulated 
in Appendix C, to which we refer those who would study the 
problem in its full complexity. The practical question before 
the American public is, however, not “How many Assyrian 
Christians were there two years ago,” but “How many must be 
kept from freezing or starving to death this winter?” 

The experience of last winter gives us the most valuable 
data on which to forecast the impending winter: 

In the months of November and December, 1915, our 
Persian Relief Commission assisted the following in the 
Urumia plain alone: 


Refugees from Turkey 11,392 

Refugees from Persian border districts. . . . 4,397 

Destitute inhabitants of the Urumia plain . . 13,723 


29,512 

In the same months the number of refugees from Turkey 
helped in other districts by the Commission was approxi- 
mately* as follows: 


From Salmas 12,000 

From Khoi 3,500 

From Albak 6,000 

Armenians in Salmas 9,000 


30,500 

Adding the totals we reach a grand total of 60,012. De- 
ducting the 9,000 Armenians, we find that the Commission 
then had on its hands no less than 51,000 of the Assyrian 

* Later and more exact figures for Salmas, Khoi, Albak and Bashkala 
are given above (p. 44). They cannot, however, be added to the figures 
for the Urumia Plain, as some weeks elapsed between the two enumera- 
tions, during which time the number of refugees at Salmas was diminished 
both by deaths and by migrations to Urumia. 

53 


Christians and of the related Christian stocks. Most of those 
who have survived a twelve month more of hardship will be 
on our hands in the coming winter. America must help feed 
the survivors of the 60,012, and probably a multitude beside, 
for times have been growing steadily worse. 


It is not necessary to provide food for the dead. The high 
death rate makes relief work easier, but it is also its most ter- 
rible indictment. 

Said William James, the psychologist: “There are topics 
known to every man from which he shies like a frightened 
horse, and which to get a glimpse of is to shun.” 

Have Russia, England, and, above all, neutral and smugly 
prosperous America, ever faced the death rate among the 
refugees of Urumia and Salmas? 


We shall arrange our data according to the three geo- 
graphical groups defined above (p. 10-14). 

I. MOSUL AND THE VALLEY OF THE TIGRIS (TURKEY) 

Mr. Shlemon gives valuable details concerning his own 
Berwar region. Of his 360 neighbors in Aina d’Nuni, 20 were 
killed and 10 women were carried off, and 120 died in villages 
near Urumia in the winter of 1915-16. Of the 200 inhabitants 
of Duri 30 were killed or carried off, and 90 died near Urumia. 
Most of the inhabitants of Ikri and Malakhta were massacred; 
the rest were carried off. The people of Bait Baluk were 
forcibly converted to Islam. Of the inhabitants of the four 
small villages, half were killed or carried off. Of the 130 
souls in Dirishki only 30 were left. From Maiyi, where Mr. 
Shlemon used to preach, 90 have died and 50 were alive in 
Persia. Haiyiz was better off than the foregoing places, for 
only one-third perished. In Bishemayi and lad half were 
dead. The last six localities mentioned were spared; but 
the inhabitants of one of them, Chalik, fled to Urumia and 50 
per cent, of them perished. 

If Mr. Shlemon’s figures are right, the death rate among 
the inhabitants of certain villages who succeeded in reaching 
Persia was one-half to one-third. 


54 


II. THE NATIVES OF ADARBAIJAN (PERSIA) 

The losses among the natives of the Urumia region were 
summarized by Dr. Shedd on the 21st of May, 1915, as 
follows: “The losses to the province are stupendous, 
heaviest on the Christians, but involving everyone. The 
number of Christians killed has been at least a thousand ; 4,000 
more have died from disease here in Urumia, and I don’t know 
how many among the refugees to Russia.” (Persian War Re- 
lief Fund Bulletin 13, Second Ed.) 

On the 25th of May, 1915, just after the Russians reoccu- 
pied Urumia, Rev. Y. M. Neesan wrote from that city to Rev. 
F. N. Heazell, of Letchworth, England, about the horrors 
which he had been through: “People died from the following 
causes: (1) From fear; (2) from their bad dwelling places; 
(3) from cold; (4) from hunger; (5) from typhoid fever — 
the dead up to now from this disease, as far as we can tell, 
are from 800 to 1,000. Those who died from the slaughter 
and raiding of villages numbered 6,000. Many died in the 
houses of their refuge from the causes mentioned above. 
About 2,000 died of those who fled (to Russia), either on the 
road or after their arrival there.” (Toynbee, Document 33.) 

III. THE HIGHLANDERS FROM KURDISTAN, TURKEY 

This group suffered more severely than did the other two. 
Passing over their losses in battle (see above, p. 39 f.) we 
have evidence such as the following: 

A. When the mountaineers first arrived in the Plain of 
Salmas there was an epidemic of intestinal trouble. Rev. E. 
W. McDowell wrote on the 17th of October, 1915, that a 
single tribe had reported forty deaths in one week. (p. 43.) 

B. The well-known war correspondent, M. Phillips Price, 
who was in Persia when the Assyrian Highlanders began to 
come in, promptly asked Mr. Shipley, the British consul at 
Tabriz, to cable the Archbishop of Canterbury for assistance. 
Some months later he drew up a “Memorandum about Assy- 
rian Refugees in Persia,” which was published in “Ararat” 
(March, 1916, p. 415 f.). He says: “In October of last year 
I came to Diliman on the plain of Salmas in Northwest Per- 
sia. I had been in Urumia during September and had seen 
the condition of the Assyrians (mostly Orthodox, Catholic 
and Protestant) in the low country round that Lake. The 

55 


American missionaries of Urumia were doing a great deal, and 
on the whole the condition of the country was not so very 
bad. There was housing accommodation and a good deal of 
corn, and it seemed as if the Americans would keep the situa- 
tion in hand. But in Salmas there was a very different state 
of affairs.” Then Mr. Price tells of the arrival, at the end of 
September, 1915, of 25,000 Assyrian Highlanders, led by Mar 
Shimun, and of the desperate lack of housing, food and cloth- 
ing, also of the insufficient supply of drugs and of skilled doc- 
tors to combat typhus and dysentery. He continues: “I did 
not observe on my return to Salmas after a journey to Van in 
November any real improvement in the health of the refugees. 
Every day 100 or more Assyrians and Armenians were dying 
in the villages round Diliman, and the same is going on 
now. . . . The position now is as follows: When I left 

Diliman for Van at the end of October, I saw in the regions 
round Bashkala another five or six thousand Assyrians and 
a sprinkling of Armenians living in caves of the rocks or in 
the open, and feeding on raw grains of wheat which they 
were picking from the ruined corn fields. On my return in 
January most of these were in Salmas, and so I think about 
30,000 Assyrian and Armenian refugees are now there; that 
is after deducting 15 per cent, as loss from disease in the 
last three months.” 

C. In February, 1916, Mr. Yoel B. Rustam stated that over 
one-third of the refugees in Bashkala had died that winter, 
the chief cause specified being starvation; and that of the 
approximately 4,000 who had gone to Khoi, nearly 1,500 
had already perished, and that of the 3,200 in Khusrabad 
(Salmas) 1,000 had already died (p. 44-48). He also was 
told that in Ula only some 350 were left out of about 900. 
On the basis of his own observations and of what he heard, 
he thinks that “over 5,000 out of the 13,000 that had come to 
the plain of Salmas must have perished” (p. 49). 

D. Rev. R. M. Labaree, of Urumia, now in America, 
thinks that the death rate did not reach one-third, but that 
it was in any case very high. 

E. Young men from Baz were interviewed in Chicago 
by Mr. Paul Shimmon. They had received letters from their 
friends and relatives in the various villages that make up that 
wonderful tribe. They gave the following figures: 

56 


In the village of Arwanduz, 60 houses, 175 persons 
had died. 

In the village of Shwawutha, 80 families, 110 persons 
had died. 

In the village of Arghab, 60 families, 150 had perished. 

In the village of Besani, 35 families, 40 had died. 

Of the inhabitants of the Mata Takhtaita (Lower Vil- 
lage), 120 families, 145 had died. 

In all, from among 355 families, 620 persons had thus 
met their fate. 

If we count six to a family, this death rate is 29.1 per cent., 
or almost one-third. 


From the above evidence we may draw several conclusions: 

1. That the death rate varies from region to region, be- 
ing larger in Salmas than in Urumia. 

2. That the relief work was more effective in Urumia 
than in remoter places like Bashkala. 

3. That disease, inadequate food, clothing and shelter 
continued for some months to cost many lives. Therefore 
estimates made in May concerning the total death rate would 
be higher than those made in the preceding February. 

4. That thousands of lives have been lost through causes 
which probably could have been prevented by the prompt use 
of larger sums of money than were available. 

5. Since great destitution continues to prevail, the lives 
of the remnant of the Christian population of Persia can be 
saved only by prompt and generous gifts. 

57 


CHAPTER VIII. 


HOW THE MONEY IS SPENT 

The Persian War Relief Committee, Prior to its consolida- 
tion with the American Committee for Armenian and Syrian 
Relief, sent $70,144.00 to Persia. 


The sums forwarded by the American Committee for 
Armenian and Syrian Relief for Persia have been as follows: 


Nov. 19, 1915 $ 15,000 00 

Jan. 18, 1916 25,000 00 

Feb. 8 10,000 00 

Feb. 15 110 00 

Feb. 24 10,000 00 

Mar. 15 15,000 00 

Apr. 13 25,000 00 

June 1 15,000 00 

June 30 25,000 00 

July 25 15,000 00 

Sept. 25 2,000 00 


Total to Oct. 5, 1916 $157,110 00 


Up to and including the fifth day of October, 1916, the 
total receipts of the American Committee for Armenian and 
Syrian Relief for all purposes have been $1,166,185.22. 

Of this amount the Rockefeller Foundation 


contributed $330,000 00 

Of this amount other sources gave 836,185 22 


All moneys have been received by Charles R. Crane, Treas- 
urer, 70 Fifth Avenue, New York City, and usually have been 
forwarded to the field through the State Department at Wash- 
ington. They have been disbursed by Relief Committees of 
which the local consular or diplomatic representatives of the 
United States were members. 


58 


The Assyrian Relief Fund has become a subsidiary of the 
American Committee for Armenian and Syrian Relief. The 
Treasurer, Woodbury G. Langdon, 59 East Fifty-ninth Street, 
New Y ork City, is also a member of the larger Commit- 
tee. Gifts are acknowledged each week in The Churchman 
and in The Living Church. The total noted in The Church- 
man of October 7, 1916, was $4,820.05. 


The disbursements of the Relief Committee in Urumia are 
tabulated in detail in quarterly statements made out by Rev. 
Hugo A. Muller, Treasurer. The most significant statement at 
hand is dated May 12th, and covers the quarter ending March 
31, 1916. If printed it would occupy at least four pages of 
this pamphlet. We compile from it the following figures: 

EXPENDITURES BY THE URUMIA RELIEF COMMITTEE, 
JANUARY 1 TO MARCH 31, 1916 


Administration 9,242.75 

Food 204,033.65 

Bedding 71,731.00 

Tools 909.50 

Seeds 28,145.00 

Oxen for Plowing 120.00 

Sanitation 25.00 

Rents and Housing 155.00 

Interest on Money 509.25 

Transfer Charges on Money 7,058.30 

Cash Grants 4,099.65 

Sunnee Relief Fund 490.10 


Total 326,519.20 


The above statement shows what it has cost to carry on 
the work for three months when the load was at its peak. It 
does not include large amounts spent in paying up the defi- 
cits of previous quarters, nor does it show heavy debts in- 
curred for seeds (46,707.45), oxen (52,520.00), and tools 
(9,784.00). 


These sums are in Persian silver currency. The unit is the 
kran, usually worth something under ten cents; so that by 

59 


moving the decimal point one place to the left one may readily 
guess the values in dollars. 

The table of silver money is : 1 toman = 10 krans = 200 shahis 

= 10,000 dinars , the latter being an imaginary entity like a mill. 

Silver is rising in value in Persia, and to-day the kran costs far more 
than ten cents. A year ago it was worth about 8% cents. 


Moneys from various sources in England and America 
were administered by the same local Commission, so as to 
eliminate overlapping and waste. The other agencies on the 
field were Russian, and through the cooperation of Russian 
consuls it has been possible in nearly all cases to divide the 
field in such a way as to secure maximum efficiency. 

The expense of administration is at a minimum, as the 
American Presbyterian missionaries give their time. 


Representing Mar Shimun, the Assyrian Patriarch, Mr. 
Paul Shimmon desires to express the gratitude of his people 
to the following agencies: 

To the Russians at home through their Government and 
their societies, and in Persia, through consuls like the Hon. 
Basil Nikitine, of Urumia, and through their armies which, 
from the Grand Duke down to the private soldier who shares 
his soup with refugees, have shown love to their Persian 
fellow-Christians : 

To the English, who through the Archbishop of Canter- 
bury s Committee, The Lord Mayor’s Fund, The Friends of 
Armenia, The Bible Lands Aid Society, Miss Barclay, and 
many others have contributed liberally to relief; 

To the Americans in Persia, Consul Gordon Paddock, of 
Tabriz, the seven Presbyterian missionaries and Rev. Y. M. 
Neesan, who constituted a local committee for relief, and the 
Board of Foreign Missions of the Presbyterian Church in the 
U. S. A., who, on receiving news of distress in Persia organ- 
ized The American Committee for Persia War Relief, later 
merged in the American Committee for American and Syrian 
Relief. Special thanks are due also to The Churchman and 
The Living Church for publicity, and to the clergymen who 
have opened their pulpits to representatives of the cause. 


60 


CHAPTER IX. 


THE NEED OF THE HOUR 

On the plateaus of Urumia and Salmas winter is impend- 
ing. Some preparations have already been made to meet the 
emergencies of caring for the refugees from the highlands 
and the destitute natives of the plains. Just how many will 
need assistance cannot be known accurately in advance, but 
the latest estimates show that the financial burden of the relief 
work in Persia will be double that of the past year. 


A cablegram from W. S. Vanneman, M.D., of Tabriz, 
received September 27, 1916, says: “Relief Committee 
needs for winter: Food, $160,000; Bedding, $100,000; 
Clothing, $25,000; Seed, $10,000; Orphanage, 
$10,000”; total, $305,000. 


The explanation of these estimates has not yet reached 
America, but a letter is doubtless under way. The essential 
facts in it will be promptly communicated to the daily and to 
the religious press. 

Evidently the Relief Commission intends this winter to pro- 
vide more covering than one quilt to a family, and better food 
than coarse bread for those who may contract typhoid or 
dysentery. It is probable that the increased estimates are in- 
fluenced also by the rise of prices, but they may likewise re- 
flect an increase in the numbers of those who will die without 
our aid. 


61 


APPENDIX A. 


LIST OF BOOKS ON THE ASSYRIAN OR NESTORIAN 
CHRISTIANS 

I. CONDITIONS PRIOR TO 1914 

Adeney, W. P. The Greek and Eastern Churches. Edinburgh, 
T. and T. Clark; New York, Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1908. 
(International Theological Library.) 

Anderson, Rufus. History of the Missions of the American 
Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions to the Orien- 
tal Churches. Boston, Congregational Publishing Society, 
1872. 2 v., $1.50. 

Badger, G. P. The Nestorians and Their Rituals. London, 
Joseph Masters, 1852. 2 v., 36s. 

Baker, J. F. Bethune-. Nestorius and His Teaching. Cam- 
bridge, 1908. 

Aims at a rehabilitation. 

Benson, Arthur Christopher. The Life of Edward White Ben- 
son, Sometime Archbishop of Canterbury. London, Mac- 
millan & Co., 1899. 2 v., 36s. 

The Assyrian Mission is treated v. ii., p. 176-196. 

Bliss, Frederick Jones. The Religions of Syria and Palestine. 
New York, Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1912. xiv., 354 p. 
(The Bross Lectures, 1908.) 

Christianity and Mohammedanism in modern Syria authoritatively described 
on the basis of first-hand knowledge. 

Burkitt, F. Crawford. Early Eastern Christianity. St. Mar- 
garet’s Lectures, 1904, on the Syriac-speaking Church. New 
York, E. P. Dutton & Co., 1904. viii., 228 p., $2. 

Cutts, Edward Lewes. Christians under the Crescent in Asia. 
London, Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge. 1877. 

Fortescue, Adrian. The Lesser Eastern Churches. London, 
Catholic Truth Society, 1913. xv., 468 p. Illustrations. 
5s. net. 

Critical treatment by a Roman Catholic scholar. Deals with Nestorianism 
and the Nestorians on pp. 54-159. 

Grant, Asahel. The Nestorians; or, The Lost Tribes. New 
York, Harper & Brothers, 1841. x., 385 p. 


62 




Heazell, F. N., and Mrs. Margoliouth, Editors. Kurds and 
Christians. London, Wells Gardner, Darton & Co., 1913. 
ix., 239 p., 3s. 6d. [Usually in stock at the Young Church- 
man Co., Milwaukee.] 

Publishes interesting letters from members of the Archbishop’s Mission. 

Houtsma, M. Th., and others. Editors. Encyclopaedia of 
Islam. Leiden, Brill; London, Luzac [1908] 1913 ff. In 

A standard work of reference. Represents best international scholarship. 

Hubbard, G. E. From the Gulf to Ararat. An Expedition 
through Mesopotamia and Kurdistan. Edinburgh and Lon- 
don. William Blackwood & Sons, 1916. xv., 273 p., 10s. 
6d. net. 

By the Secretary of the Commission which laid out the boundary. Ex- 
cellent illustrations. 

Jugie, M. Nestorius et la Controverse Nestorienne. Paris, 
Beauchesne, 1912. 326 p., 6 fr. (Bibliotheque de Theo- 

logie Historique.) 

Labourt, J. Le Christianisme dans l’Empire Perse sous la 
Dynastie Sassanide (224-632). 2me edition. Paris, Victor 
Lecoffre, 1904. xix., 372 p., 3fr., 50c. 

Laurie, Thomas. Dr. Grant and the Mountain Nestorians. 
3d edition, revised. Boston, 1874. 

Loofs, Friedrich. Nestorius and His Place in the History of 
Christian Doctrine. Cambridge, at the University Press, 
1914. vii., 132 p., 3s. 6d. 

Maclean, A. J. and Browne, G. F. The Catholicos of the East 
and His People. London, 1892. 

Describes ecclesiastical customs. 

Mason, Arthur James. Life of William Edward Collins, Bish- 
op of Gibraltar. London, Longmans, Green, & Co., 1912. 
viii., 191 p., 6s. 

Narrates a visit to Mar Shimun. 

Miller, William. Ottoman Empire, 1801-1913. (Cambridge 
Historical Ser.). New York, G. P. Putnam’s Sons, 1913. 
xvi., 547 p., $2.50. 

Pp. 508-528 : Bibliography. 

Best brief treatment in English. Deals chiefly with Turkey in Europe. 

Murray, John, Publisher. Handbook for travellers in Asia 
Minor, Transcaucasia, Persia, etc. Edited by Major-General 
Sir Charles Wilson. [With index and directory for 1911.] 
London, John Murray, 1895. (xii.), (2), [88], 416 p. 


63 


Perkins, Justin. A residence of eight years in Persia, among 
the Nestorian Christians. Andover, Allen, Morrill & Ward- 
well, 1843. Map, plates, xviii., 512 p., $3.50 

Piolet, J. B. Les Missions Catholiques frangaises au xixe 
siecle. Paris, Armand Colin, 1901-1903. 6 v., 60 fr. 

Illustrated descriptions of the French Catholic missions in Turkey and 

Persia are found in the first volume. 

Richter, Julius. A History of Protestant Missions in the Near 
East. New York, Fleming H. Revell Co., 1910. 435 p., 

$2.50. 

Saeki, P. Y. The Nestorian Monument in China. London, So- 
ciety for Promoting Christian Knowledge, 1916. x., 342 p., 

10s. 6d. 

The most recent monograph. By a Japanese professor. 

Southgate, Horatio. Narrative of a tour through Armenia, 
Kurdistan, Persia and Mesopotamia. New York, D. Apple- 
ton & Co., 1840. 2 v. 

Describes Salmas, Urumia, Mosul, etc. 

Southgate, Horatio. Narrative of a visit to the Syrian [Jacob- 
ite] Church of Mesopotamia. New York, D. Appleton & Co., 
1844. xvi. [13] -2 7 5 p., $1. 

The Statesman’s Year-Book, Statistical and Historical Annual 
of the World for the Year, 1916. Edited by J. Scott Keltie. 
. . . Assisted by M. Epstein. London, Macmillan & Co., 
1916. xliv., 1560 p., 10s. 6d. 

Sykes, P. M. A History of Persia. London, Macmillan & Co., 
1915. 2 v., 50s. 

A finely illustrated narrative, ending with the revolution of 1906. 

Wigram, William Ainger. The Doctrinal Position of the 
Assyrian or East Syrian Church. London, Society for Pro- 
moting Christian Knowledge, 1908. Is. 

Wigram, William Ainger. An Introduction to the History of 
the Assyrian Church. . . . 100-640 a.d. London, Society 
for Promoting Christian Knowledge; New York, E. S. 
Gorham, 1910. xviii., 318 p., $2 

Wigram, W. A., and Wigram, Edgar T. A. The Cradle of 
Mankind. Life in Eastern Kurdistan. Illustrated. Map. 
London, A. and C. Black, 1914. xii., 373 p. 

Deals with the work of the Archbishop’s Mission. 

64 


Wilson, Samuel Graham. Persian life and customs with 
scenes and incidents of residence and travel in the land of 
the lion and the sun. New York, Fleming H. Revell Co., 
1895. Illustrated. Map. 333 p., $1.50. 

By a distinguished Presbyterian missionary, who was head of American 
relief work in the Russian Caucasus at the time of his death in June, 1916. 

Wilson, Samuel Graham. Persia: Western Mission. Phila- 
delphia, Presbyterian Board of Publication and Sabbath- 
school Work, 1896. Illustrated. Map. 381 p. 

Yohannan, Abraham. The Death of a Nation; or, The Ever- 
Persecuted Nestorian or Assyrian Christians. New York, 
G. P. Putnam’s Sons, 1916. Illustrated. Map. $1.50. 

A sketch of persecutions through the centuries, with constant references to 
the original sources. By the- well-known Syriac lexicographer. 


II. CONDITIONS DURING THE PRESENT WAR 

Ararat. A searchlight on Armenia. London, The Armenian 
United Association of London, July, 1913. 6d. 

American Committee for Armenian and Syrian Relief, 70 Fifth 
Avenue, New York City. 

Five bulletins published under the following titles: 

Bulletin 1. Report of Committee on Armenian Atrocities. 

Bulletin II. Latest News Concerning the Armenian and 
Syrian Sufferers, January 25, 1916. 

Bulletin III. Armenia. 

Bulletin IV. Latest News Concerning the Armenian and 
Syrian Sufferers, April 5, 1916. 

Bulletin V. Latest News Concerning the Armenian and 
Syrian Sufferers, May 24, 1916. 

Pamphlets will be sent free. 

Bryce, Lord, see Toynbee, A. J. 

Dillon, E. J. Persia and the Allies. (In the Contemporary 
Review, March, 1916, p. 315-330.) Reprinted in Littell’s 
Living Age, May 13, 1916. 

[Doughty, W. E. Comp.] A National Test of Brotherhood. 
America’s opportunity to relieve suffering in Armenia, 
Syria, Persia, and Palestine. . [New York, American Com- 
mittee for Armenian and Syrian Relief, October, 1916.] 


65 


Near East, The. London. Weekly. 

Persia War Relief Fund, 25 Broad Street, New York City. 

Bulletin No. 12. The War in Persia. [April, 1915.] 

[July, 1915.] 

Bulletin No. 13. The Persia Missionaries and the War. 

[July, 1915.] 

In the autumn of 1915 this Committee was merged in the American Com- 
mittee for Armenian and Syrian Relief. 

Quarterly Papers and Annual Reports of the Archbishop of 
Canterbury’s Assyrian Mission. London, Church House, and 
Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge. 

Platt, Mary Schauffler, Editor. The War Journal of a Mis- 
sionary in Persia. Chicago, Woman’s Presbyterian Board 
of Missions of the Northwest, 1915. 51 p., 5c. 

Shimmon, Paul. The Fate of the Syrians. (Reprinted from 
Ararat, November, 1915, the organ of the Armenian United 
Association of London.) 5 p. 

Shimmon, Paul. Massacres of Syrian Christians in N. W. 
Persia and Kurdistan. London, Wells Gardner, Darton & 
Co.; Milwaukee, The Young Churchman Co., 1916. 23 p., 

20c. 

Toynbee, Arnold J., Editor. 

In consultation with Lord Bryce, Mr. Arnold J. Toynbee of London has 
compiled the following book, kindly sent to us in page proof. 

Documents Relating to the Treatment of Armenian and Assy- 
rian Christians in the Ottoman Empire and Northwestern Persia, 
Subsequently to the Outbreak of the European War, following 
upon Correspondence Between Viscount Grey of Fallodon, Secretary 
of State for Foreign Affairs, and Viscount Bryce. 

London : Printed under the authority of His Majesty’s Stationery 
Office, by Sir Joseph Causton & Sons, Limited, 9, Eastcheap, E. C. 

After the middle of November copies can be secured for a dollar each from 
the American Committee for Armenian and Syrian Relief, 70 Fifth Avenue, 
New York City. Extracts fill three pages of the second section of the New 
York Times of Sunday, October 8, 1916. 


The story of the Presbyterian Mission in Persia during the war is in prep- 
aration by Miss Rachel C. Schauffler of Lakewood, New Jersey. 


The standard bibliography covering the field is: Oriental Bibli- 
ography, Berlin. Reuther & Reichard. The latest volumes 
(xxiii-xxiv) cover the years 1909-10. 

66 


k l < 


AN APPEAL ON BEHALF OF THE ASSYRIAN 
CHRISTIANS 


The American Committee for Armenian and Syrian Relief 
issued the following appeal in June, 1916, over the signa- 
tures of sixteen American bishops and of the rector of Trinity 
Parish, New York: 

“For thirty years the Archbishop of Canterbury’s 
Mission has been at work among the Assyrian (Syrian) 
Christians in Northwestern Persia and Kurdistan. These 
Nestorians, who have lived near the borders of Turkey 
and Persia for centuries, have been overwhelmed since 
October, 1914, by the suffering of dwellers in a war zone. 

“The Assyrian Christians are divided into three 
groups, which have met fates varying with their geo- 
graphical location. From those on the upper reaches of 
the Tigris, near Mosul, Turkey, very little has been heard; 
and the most recent news tells of the massacre of most of 
those living in the Bohtan region. The second group, in- 
habiting the plain of Urumia, Persia, has suffered ter- 
ribly as the tides of war ebbed back and forth over the 
plain, and many have died through disease, starvation 
and massacre. The plight of the third main group which, 
under the leadership of the Assyrian Patriarch, Mar 
Shimun, fled with great difficulty from the mountains of 
Kurdistan and crossed the Persian border to the plain of 
Salmas in the autumn of 1915, is even more desperate. 
In answer to an appeal of the Archbishop of Canterbury 
published in the London Times of November 10, 1915, 
some assistance has been sent from England. Through 
the American Committee for Armenian and Syrian Re- 
lief, with which the Persian War Relief Committee has 
merged, there has been sent since last November the sum 
of $115,110. Included in this amount are generous con- 
tributions from the Rockefeller Foundation. 

“It is now increasingly evident that previous efforts at 
relief have been inadequate. Last autumn in Persia 
$10,000, sent by the American Committee for Armenian 
and Syrian Relief, kept 10,000 persons alive for a month, 
but this meant rations of bread and salt only. 

“The latest information from missionary sources and 
from Mr. Paul Shimmon, personal representative of the 

67 


Assyrian Patriarch, shows that in spite of all that has 
been done exposure, disease and starvation have cost the 
lives of a large proportion of the refugees. Thus it is 
reported in March, 1916, from one locality that ‘out of 
3,200 refugees in this village, 1,000 had already died 
and there were many who were ill.’ 

“Funds are needed at once for clothing and more 
and better food, also to assist the refugees to render their 
ruined homes habitable and to plant and harvest crops. 
Since the Russian occupation of the region where most 
of the Assyrians now are, relief work has become surer 
and easier. Funds may be safely transferred by cable 
and will be distributed with the co-operation of American 
consuls, of missionaries and of the Assyrian Patriarch. 

“The plight of the Assyrian Christians is peculiarly 
difficult, as they have no wealthy brethren in Persia or in 
the Caucasus to whom they can appeal. Therefore the 
Church in America should rally to the support of this 
ancient communion of Oriental Christians.” 

THIS APPEAL WAS SIGNED BY THE FOLLOWING: 

David H. Greer, Bishop of New York 

Charles S. Burch, Suffragan Bishop of New York 

James De Wolf Perry, Jr., Bishop of Rhode Island 

William Lawrence, Bishop of Massachusetts 

Samuel G. Babcock, Suffragan Bishop of Massachusetts 

Frederick Burgess, Bishop of Long Island 

Philip M. Rhinelander, Bishop of Pennsylvania 

Thomas J. Garland, Suffragan Bishop of Pennsylvania 

William T. Manning, Rector of Trinity Parish, New York 

Edwin S. Lines, Bishop of Newark 

Chauncey B. Brewster, Bishop of Connecticut 

Thomas F. Davies, Bishop of Western Massachusetts 

William A. Leonard, Bishop of Ohio 

Charles T. Olmsted, Bishop of Central New York 

Richard H. Nelson, Bishop of Albany 

W. R. Stearly, Suffragan Bishop of Newark 

Paul Matthews, Bishop of New Jersey 

68 


THE ARCHBISHOP OF CANTERBURY 

has communicated his hearty approval in the letter, printed 
below, addressed to Mr. Paul Shimmon, personal representa- 
tive of the Assyrian Patriarch. Rt. Rev. Daniel S. Tuttle, D.D., 
Presiding Bishop, has added his endorsement in a letter to 
Mr. Shimmon, dated September 27, 1916. 

Lambeth Palace, S. E. (London), 
Dear Mr. Shimmon, 9th August, 1916 

I have now received your interesting letter of July 13th, 
and I rejoice to hear of the friendly welcome which you have 
received in the United States and of the response which is 
made to your appeal on behalf of both Assyrians and Arme- 
nians. The published letter signed by sixteen American 
Bishops is a very weighty document. It is hardly necessary 
that I should add to what I have already written to you and 
on your behalf, but I cordially approve of your stating, as 
opportunity offers, that you have my full approval in the en- 
deavor you are making, and that with all my heart I wish 
God-speed to your efforts. The distresses of your people are 
appalling. No gifts of money, however generous, can really 
assuage their sorrows, but we can at least show them that 
their fellow-Christians in other parts of the world are mind- 
ful of the terrors, the sorrows, and the strain which they have 
been called upon to undergo. Pray let me hear again from 
you before long. I remain, with every good wish, 

Yours very truly, 

(Signed) Randall Cantuar. 

The Archbishop also sent a letter to Bishop Tuttle, dated 
Lambeth Palace, September 14, 1916, from which we quote, by 
permission, the following extract: 

“Sad record which reaches us seems to enhance the gravity 
of the situation. I do not think it is possible to exaggerate 
the distress of the Christian men, women and children now 
prevailing everywhere in the wide area on the borderland of 
Turkey and Persia wherein, for so many generations, the 
Christian population has held to its faith in face of unending 
oppression, cruelty and misrule. Anything which can at the 
present time be done to augment the relief which we are try- 
ing to render to them will be most welcome.” 

69 


RESOLUTION OF THE GENERAL CONVENTION 

“RESOLVED, the House of Deputies concurring, That the 
General Convention of this Church expresses its deep sym- 
pathy with our Christian brethren now suffering great tribu- 
lation in Armenia, Syria, Palestine, Persia and Assyria; that 
it regards with profound emotion the faithful witness of our 
Oriental brethren to their Christian faith even to the death; 
that it heartily endorses the appeal to the dioceses of this 
Church on their behalf by the Archbishop of Canterbury, the 
Presiding Bishop and other bishops and clergy of this Church; 
and that in accordance with the proclamation of the Presi- 
dent of the United States setting apart Saturday, October 21st, 
and the Sunday following, the latter being the Eighteenth 
Sunday after Trinity, as joint days on which the people of the 
United States may make such contributions as they feel dis- 
posed towards relief of these stricken people, it is hereby rec- 
ommended to all bishops and clergy having cure of souls, that 
the days mentioned be adopted as appropriate days on which 
the congregations and people of this Church may be exhorted 
to assist the sufferers with their prayers and alms. 

“Be it further RESOLVED, that the Bishops of this Church 
unite in recommending the special observance of the days 
named for the purposes mentioned in their respective dioceses; 
and that the Presiding Bishop and Committee on Religious 
Services of this Convention be requested to make provision for 
a service and appeal in behalf of Armenian and Syrian Chris- 
tians on Sunday, October 22d, at some convenient hour.” 


Delay in receiving printed matter, combined with 
other arrangements that may already have been made for 
October 21st-22d, will in many instances make it imprac- 
ticable to organize satisfactorily for an effective offering 
for Armenian and Syrian Relief on October 21st-22d, 
the dates specified by the President. 

In such instances it is earnestly urged that the spirit, 
if not the letter, of the President’s proclamation be ob- 
served, by taking time to secure the necessary supplies 
and make preparations for a satisfactory offering, in 
some measure commensurate with the need, a week or 
two weeks later than the dates suggested by the President. 


70 


The Right Reverend Daniel S. Tuttle, D.D., Presiding Bishop 
of the Protestant Episcopal Church in the United States 
of America has authorized the publication of the following 
original prayer, which we copy from his autograph letter of 
the 3d of October, 1916. 

& draper for Qfljose tn Btstregg 

sfiS <®ob, our J?eabetily jfatfjer, tufjo art unteasing 
in goobness anb lobing feinbness to tijc sons of 
men, anb of pitying mercy totoarbs them tijat suffer, 
toe commenb to Cfjp iUlmighty care anb protection 
tfje afflicteb peoples of tfje bistant Cast, tfje Assyrians 
anb Armenians anb tfje Syrians libing in Curhey 
anb in tfje Russian Caucasus, in Persia anb in 
Cgypt. JAclicbe toe pray ®fjee, tfje bistress anb 

torture of tfje CfjriStianS in tfjose borber fanbs. 
Assuage tfjeir grief. Supply tfjeir toants. g>abe 
tfjem from massacre, beStitution, famine anb from 
tfje fjorrorS of beportation ; anb tfje toomen anb innocent 
cfjilbren from tfje sfjameful perils of captibity. incline 
tfje fjearts of all tfje toorlb to assist tfjem to rebutlb 
tfjeir ruineb fjomes anb to secure seeb to Soto anb 
clotfjcs to toear. Jflay tfje goob example of tfjose 
tofjo fjabe kept tfje faitfj anb bieb tfje martyrs’ beatfj 
abail to strengthen tfjem tfjat remain to resist 
temptation anb to Stanb tfje firmer for righteousness 
anb truth- &nb, by Cljy grace, may butiful submission 
to Cfjy toill abibe toitfj them, anb a stoeet Spirit of 
resignation, anb eben of forgibeneSS, anb may the 
bays of their suffering be sfjorteneb, to Chine honor 
anb glory, through the merits anb mercies of Sleiixi 
Christ our g>abiour. Hmen. 

71 


PRACTICAL HINTS 


PATHFINDER TO MAIN POINTS 


Contents 4 

List of Books 62-66 

Who Are the Assyrian Christians? 7 

How Many Need Help? 53-54 

Narratives of Special Heroism 15-18, 30-42, 44-49 

The Patriarch’s Letter 50 

Appeal Signed by Sixteen Bishops 67 


Endorsement by the Archbishop of Canterbury 69 

Resolution of the General Convention 70 

A Prayer for Those in Distre 71 

The Need of the Hour 27-29, 61 


Relief work among the Assyrian Christians and related 
groups in Northwestern Persia this winter will demand 
$305,000.00 (see page 61). 

For free copies of this pamphlet, and for folders suitable 
for distribution in churches, send to the American Committee 
for Armenian and Syrian Relief, 70 Fifth Avenue, New 
York, or to The Churchman , 381 Fourth Avenue, New York, 
or to The Living Church , Milwaukee, Wis. 

Beware of solicitors, even though equipped with apparent- 
ly genuine credentials from Oriental prelates. 

Contributions may be sent to Woodbury G. Langdon, Esq., 
Treasurer of the Assyrian Relief Fund, 59 East Fifty-ninth 
Street, New York City, who transmits funds to Persia through 
the American Committee for Armenian and Syrian Relief, of 
which he is a member. 


The expenses of both committees are met by special sub- 
scriptions, so that every dollar you give will be sent to the 

sufferers. 

America is the only nation now in a position to send 
prompt and adequate assistance to the Assyrian Christians. 


“ fCorb, uffj* n sum uir an tjmtgcr ? b mb frfc Ulljp? ? 


72 




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New York 




